Disagreements
by Edward Carson
Summary: They may love each other very much, but Charlie Carson and Elsie Hughes/Carson have always had their disagreements and this isn't going to change. This is a series of vignettes exploring how their changing circumstances affect what they disagree about and how they negotiate those disagreements: what to call each other, Mr. Green, Lady Mary, intimacy, cooking!, and Becky.
1. Chapter 1: Names

**Names**

He hadn't come along to her sitting room this evening, which was a little odd. Over the past few years it had become a habit, something that occurred occasionally, and then frequently, to the point where she looked for him after dinner when the upstairs was all settled and the downstairs were having a last cup of tea or drifting off to their beds. It didn't happen every night that he turned up with sherry or a half bottle of wine, or sometimes even without anything but the desire for her company. But he came more often than not.

Things had been different since Christmas. With the change in their relationship came a change in expectations. Somehow what had merely been a habit became an imperative. They wanted to see each other, for a few minutes on their own, at the end of every day. In a working world where they saw each other all day but had no private moments to be the couple they now were, this time was almost vital. They needed it to immerse themselves in this new chapter of their lives as both together - with each other - and apart - from everyone else. Since Christmas, unless there was some irregular function upstairs that required the butler's presence, he had not missed one of these late evening trysts. She couldn't wait much longer. They had, as usual, a full day ahead of them tomorrow.

Well, something must have come up with the family and she couldn't begrudge his absence, if that were the case, because that was, after all, his job. Best to go off to bed and hope to catch up tomorrow. Still, she was a little wistful about it. She'd enjoyed his company for years, but now there was a different feeling to their after-hours sherry, a comfortable if rather benign intimacy that yet held the promise of greater things on the horizon. And the promise of a kiss as they parted at the stairs, _if_ there was no one else around - his rule.

She turned off the light in her sitting room and closed the door. In the passage, she glanced automatically at his office as she walked by it, the door closed and...a thin ray of light emanating from the space along the bottom. She paused. If he were upstairs, there would be no reason for a light to be on in there. An impatient little sigh escaped her. It might be someone making a phone call, but they ought not to go in there without Mr. Carson's permission and she had certainly warned off one or two of them about making late-night calls - to anyone. No matter who was in there or why, she had to investigate, so she knocked abruptly and then turned the handle and walked in.

"Mr. Carson!"

There he was, behind his desk, leaning back in his chair, a glass of wine in his hand, the light she had seen coming from his reading lamp.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked, with no little surprise. Here she thought he'd been delayed by the family and he was only steps away from her in his own office.

He glanced over at her and then his gaze dropped to the glass in his hand and the swirling wine within it that seemed particularly fascinating. "Just having a quiet moment," he replied in a voice devoid of inflection.

There was nothing inherently wrong with what he was doing, but Mrs. Hughes was troubled by this whole picture. He seemed _too_ quiet, too subdued. And why wasn't he looking at her? She moved into the room and closed the door behind her. "Is everything all right, Charlie?" she asked solicitously, approaching him slowly. No one else had mentioned any upset upstairs. And he had seemed fine at dinner. Well, perhaps a little restrained. But no one could be in high spirits all the time, and he tended toward a calmer disposition in the evening when all the tasks of the day had been completed.

He twitched at her words, but he didn't look up. "Everything is fine," he said tonelessly.

"What is it?" she asked, softening her voice and reaching over to put a comforting hand on his arm. For a moment it almost seemed that he might move it out of her reach, but he didn't, and she slid her fingers over his forearm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He seemed unnaturally stiff.

She didn't really know what to do. He was looking away again, across the room, but the expression on his face was a blank one. She put her head to one side, studying him, and after a long moment, he glanced at her, unable to ignore her attention. "It's nothing to trouble you with," he said, a little abruptly, and then his eyes moved off again. And then he put the glass down on the desk and stood up, dislodging her hand from his arm and edging away from her a little toward the other corner of his desk.

"It's late. You should probably be off to bed." He did not look at her as he said this.

She couldn't remember having seen him behave this way before and had no idea what had precipitated it, but leaving him to stew like this was not even a possibility. "I don't think so," she said firmly. "Not until I know what's on your mind."

He remained resolutely silent.

It was the most frustrating situation. "Charlie," she said, reaching out to him again. But this time he took a step away quite deliberately.

"Are you ... angry with me?" She quickly reviewed the day for overt transgressions and nothing leapt out at her.

"Why would I be angry with you?" Still he did not look at her, but there was something in the way he said this. It was as if ... as if there was an answer to that question and that she should know it.

She sighed. "What is it?" Impatience edged out the softness in her words.

And now he turned to her, his eyes smouldering as she had often seen them in the past few weeks, but it was not passion she saw there. It was ... what? She wanted to know, desperately, but...

"I'm afraid I don't read minds, Charlie Carson," she said, with more exasperation than perhaps she meant. "So if there's something troubling you, you'll have to spell it out for me."

It had been disturbing when he wouldn't meet her eyes, but now it was even more unsettling that he was staring at her so intensely. She'd become accustomed to seeing a fathomless love in those eyes, but it wasn't love that was whirling there now.

"I have asked you _not_ to call me Charlie..."

"Oh, not the name thing again." She heaved a sigh and decided she wasn't going to stand around here and argue with him all night. She pulled over the second chair and sat.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked somewhat aggressively.

"Exactly what I said. Haven't we done this already?"

"May I finish?" he asked icily.

She bit her lip and jerked her head a little to indicate he should continue.

"I have asked that you not use that name, but you have chosen to do so anyway, and I accept that you and I view these things differently. You ... call me what you want to, and I continue to address you as I prefer to do so."

"Although that's not _my_ preference," she put in, and then, at his glare, she subsided again.

"So neither of us is entirely happy. If it were only that, however, we could call it a draw and continue to coexist peacefully. But we are not operating on a level playing field."

With some effort, she restrained herself from rolling her eyes. "I didn't go to Eton, _Mr. Carson_ , so you'll have to explain that to me, too." He hadn't gone to Eton either, but it seemed to her that some "old boys" truism about playing fair or something not being cricket was about to get hauled into the conversation, not that she could see the relevance.

He seemed to be having difficulty putting his concern into words. He shifted uneasily, looked away, flexed his hands, all signs of agitation. This bothered her. She didn't like to see him discomfited. But if he would only just spit it out. "For goodness sake, just _say_ it!" she urged him.

His eyes came up swiftly to hers then and she saw a current of anger in them. "I don't like that you call me Charlie in public, but I don't complain about it," he said, and the studied neutrality of his tone had disappeared, replaced now by a rather more heated note. "Meanwhile, not only do you make a fuss over me addressing you formally, but you also have enlisted just about everyone else in the house in making fun of me when I do!" There. He'd _said_ it. And, having done so, he stared defiantly at her. And she realized, almost peripherally, that the flash in his eyes was hurt. And she didn't like that at all.

"What do you mean you don't complain about it!" she exclaimed, her shock at his accusation putting her on the defensive. "You do complain about it, just not in words. What about all that eye rolling and those dark looks and glares? Don't tell me you don't communicate _your_ feelings to everyone who's got eyes to see!" She crossed her arms and looked away, experiencing a surge of unfamiliar and unpleasant emotion.

"By addressing you as _Mrs._ _Hughes_ , I am trying to maintain an atmosphere of professional decorum in our _place of work_. It is how things have been for years..." he raised his voice slightly over the contemptuous "Hmmpf!" that that remark elicited from her, "...and it has worked perfectly well as part of the effort to maintain the order and discipline that is a necessary part of domestic service. You violate that code by addressing me informally in formal situations and, more, by making it a matter of amusement for the staff that we differ on this, all of which diminishes the tone of this house and undermines my authority!" His eyes were round with anger now, but that other element, the jagged edge of hurt, was written all over his face.

They were both glaring at each other.

With a tremendous effort of will, he swallowed the impulse to say more. He broke eye contact with her, looking round the room, and inhaling deeply to restore some semblance of calm. Still not meeting her eyes, he said, in a quieter voice, "This is a matter of our public interactions only. I am not challenging you on what you call me in private."

She wasn't ready to back down. "You're still calling me _Mrs. Hughes_ in private. When's that going to change?"

It almost set him off again. "That's not the issue here. It's ... not right, yet, for me to use your Christian name. When it is, I will."

This evoked a sigh of exasperation from her. "So until we've uttered the magical words _I do_ , that's impossible for you? Do you think you'll turn into a frog if you do?"

"You're making fun of me again," he said crossly.

"Do you see me laughing?" she retorted. "You take yourself too seriously, _Charlie_. I think you should just relax about a few things."

"I think you should let me decide for myself how I want to feel about things."

Silence descended upon them and so did a physical stillness. Neither of them moved until, after a minute or so, he made a small impatient sound and went over to sit in his chair. They were closer together now, as she had pulled her chair up to the side of his desk. But he made sure to sit at right angles to her so that they were not looking at each other. And then the stillness returned.

He was still angry, as much at himself as with her. He wished she hadn't come and found him tonight. If he'd had longer to work on the irritation and ... hurt he'd felt earlier, as they sat down to dinner and he noticed, not for the first time, the hidden smiles and smirks of several of the staff when he called her Mrs. Hughes and she smiled collusively with them, ... then this confrontation would not have occurred. He might have been able to raise the subject with her in a more dispassionate way sometime tomorrow, or the day after or... No! Would he ever have been able to contain his ... _hurt_ at her making merry at his expense? How could she treat him like that? He didn't know how to recover from this wound.

Mrs. Hughes had a fairly phlegmatic disposition. She did not often rise to provocation or permit her emotions to get the better of her. Had anyone else presented her with the sullen and sulky manner she had met in him tonight, she would have gotten to the bottom of it in straight order, coolly and without recriminations. But he got right under her skin in a way no one else ever had and she had completely lost her composure. The novelty of it was unsettling enough. Far worse was what had happened because she had done so. She had hurt him by letting herself be distracted by her emotions of surprise and guilt, and by ignoring the substance of his complaint in her haste to defend herself from the emotional framework in which he had made it. She had only meant to tease him into a more relaxed relationship, and _had_ drawn the others in as allies in her cause when she failed in this quest on her own. She ought to have realized that there was a great difference between her playful pokes in one-on-one exchanges with him and her leading a combined assault by any combinations of the staff, or anyone else for that matter.

"I'm sorry."

She was startled. "What are _you_ apologizing for? I'm the one at fault here."

He shook his head. "No. You're right. I take myself too seriously. I ought to loosen up a little." He spoke heavily, with resignation. She'd teased him before about his reluctance to operate in the modern world. Perhaps this was another element in the inexorable march to modernization.

The sight of his slumping shoulders, the whole air of dispiritedness enveloping him, pained her."Oh, ...," oh, what should she call him in this moment? "... _Charlie_. I'm sorry, but this really isn't a moment for Mr. Carson. Charlie, _I'm_ sorry. And _you're_ right. I have no business telling you what to do or how you should feel. And I was ... doing what you said, with the others, only I didn't think of it that way. I won't do it again." She reached out to him, wanting desperately to touch him, to wipe the hurt from his eyes, to smooth away the distress in his wounded countenance. But now she felt self-conscious about it and her hand hovered for a moment and then fell. The movement caught his eye and he turned to her.

"Look," he said, sounding very tired, "I don't want to go back to ... before. I enjoy this new level of ... intimacy, I suppose you'd call it." He held his hand out to her and she took it.

She got up then, and went to his side, sliding her hand along his neck and pulling his head against her. Anticipating some resistance to this display of affection, she was surprised, and then relieved when he leaned into her, and made a quiet sound of pleasure when she ran her hand through his hair.

"Well," she said softly. "We've never had an argument like that before."

"I don't ever want to have one again." His voice, spoken into her, was muffled.

Strange. They'd clashed a lot over the years over matters both great and small, and managed to negotiate a resolution, or at least a truce, without all this emotional turbulence. But things had changed over the past year or so. Mr. Carson had grown increasingly uneasy with any disharmony between them on even the smallest issue. And she, clearly, was growing less capable of maintaining her even temper when at odds with him. Was that the effect of love? How could something so wonderful have such an ill effect?

She patted his head. "I don't think that's the last difference of opinion we'll have, Charlie. But I agree with you, this isn't the way I want to resolve them." Now she put a hand under his arm and gently urged him to stand up. He withdrew from her reluctantly, but he did so. And then he was standing beside her, frowning a little, but far less tense than he had been only moments ago.

"We're going to have to re-learn how to _express_ our differences," she said.

He wasn't pleased by this, hoping, perhaps, that they could just avoid conflict altogether. She knew that wasn't possible, and thought he did, too, even if he didn't want to think about it right now.

"There's one advantage to our new situation, Mr. Carson," she said, eliciting a reluctant smile from him at the formal address.

"What's that?" he asked sceptically.

She slid her hands along his chest and leaned up to kiss him. He hardly stirred except to move his lips against hers. When, after a long moment, they pulled back a little, she smiled at him.

"Making up is going to be a lot more enjoyable."


	2. Chapter 2: Mr Green

**Mr. Green**

The whole business of Lord Gillingham's valet had disturbed him from the beginning. Such men, Mr. Carson thought, ought to be strung up, without appeal. The matter was a troubling one from any perspective, but it appalled him that such a crime had occurred at Downton and to someone he knew. These elements were unsettling enough, but there was something else again that preyed on his mind, and Sergeant Willis's return to the Abbey that afternoon brought it to the surface. Perhaps it was time to get to the bottom of this. And so he took his concerns to Mrs. Hughes's sitting room, as he often did at the end of the day.

"What's wrong?" she asked, turning from her desk where she had just made a final entry in her logbook. There were so many signs that something was amiss. He had knocked, entering as he did so, then collapsed heavily into his usual chair as if carrying a great burden, and he had brought no sherry, or anything else, with him. _It must be something big_ , she thought, as she moved over to sit opposite him at the side table.

He didn't quite know how to put it. "Nothing _wrong_ , exactly. It's just that I don't know that I've ever heard the whole story about Anna and ... well, what happened," he said carefully.

"What's brought this up?"

He sighed. "Oh, the endless police parade."

Well, she understood that. "Do you really want to know?"

He didn't. But what he wanted and what was necessary were often two different things. "I think I'd like to know why Scotland Yard is so persistent in their inquiries with regard to Anna. And I'm not asking you to betray a confidence. The thing is in the public domain now."

She knew it wasn't prurient interest on his part and thought perhaps there was an argument to be made that he should have all the facts, as they existed. So she told him. The house party. Dame Melba's concert. Anna and Mr. Green downstairs. And the aftermath. Anna in her sitting room, begging for her help, petrified lest Mr. Bates find out.

"And you did help her."

"I did. I found her a dress to wear. I made excuses for her to Mr. Bates. And I tried to comfort her, as much as it was possible to do in those circumstances." This was not a memory she liked to revisit and yet it would not go away.

"And ... how did that work?"

There was an odd note in his voice and Mrs. Hughes did not quite know what to make of it. "Well, it was a ... bit of trouble keeping Mr. Bates out of it."

"But he did find out. How was that?"

His questions rattled her. The deliberate way he was eliciting information reminded her of that highly unpleasant experience she'd had of cross-examination in Mr. Bates's trial for the murder of his wife. She squirmed a little. "I told him," she admitted. "He made me do so!" she added sharply, not quite sure why she felt defensive before that guarded look on his face. "He said he'd leave Downton and Anna if I didn't tell him. So I did."

It had been a very difficult conversation, first trying to resist Mr. Bates's demands for the truth and then actually telling him what had happened. It was always going to be awkward, but she couldn't anticipate the depths of his anguish until she'd seen it. He didn't cry in front of her, although he cried later - she'd heard him in the passage - but tears were not necessary to convey his grief to her there in that moment.

"And then he brooded around here for weeks and then finally gave some thought to killing the man, only persuading himself at the last minute that he could not do so."

That wasn't quite how she would have put it, although Mr. Bates had done just that."Well, he didn't, and that's the important thing. And he made it up with Anna, too, which went a long way to helping her to heal." She sighed with relief. There. He knew it all now.

"You think that, do you?"

"What?"

"That those were the important things? That Mr. Bates _didn't_ in fact kill Mr. Green? That he and Anna recovered from it as a couple?"

It was one of those situations where the questions were set up to elicit a 'yes' answer when it was perfectly obvious that the _correct_ answer, or the one he thought correct, should be 'no." She frowned at him. He'd asked to hear what happened and she'd told him, expecting his great heart to be overcome with grief for Anna and bittersweet gladness that love had triumphed between those star-crossed lovers once more. But he was staring at her with the least sympathetic look she'd seen on his face since she'd asked him to include Mrs. Patmore's nephew's name on the war memorial.

Mr. Carson was not as hard-hearted as his officious manner made him appear. In fact, the more he knew about this incident, the more distraught he became. It was only through the long-practiced habit of emotional reserve that he'd been able to contain himself thus far, and he did not think that could last much longer.

"What are you getting at?" Mrs. Hughes asked, almost irritably. Mr. Carson was behaving oddly and she did not like it. Had she ever seen him like this?

"How could you have been so _foolish_?" He spoke in a low voice, and the expression on his face was one of disbelief.

She only heard one word. "I beg your pardon!" she said indignantly, flaring right up. No one called _her_ foolish and got away with it, least of all him.

He wasn't at all affected by her reaction. "Foolhardy, then," he said sharply. "Reckless. Senseless. Not to mention inconsiderate, negligent." He offered these words up to clarify his meaning. Once he got going he realized his concerns were manifold and all of them were serious.

Was it shock he felt? Anger? Astonishment? Was it necessary to name all the feelings churning through him?

Mrs. Hughes was stunned. Was this _her_ Mr. Carson? The man who professed to love her? Whose eyes so often spoke of his adoration for her? As far as she could see, it wasn't even Mr. Carson, the formal butler of Downton Abbey. "I don't know where that's coming from, Charles Carson, but if I were you I'd start apologizing fast, and close the door behind yourself when you're finished!" Never, in all her born days, had anyone directed such a litany of pejoratives at her. When he did not move, but continued to stare at her with such a profoundly disdainful look, she stood up. "I think you'd better leave."

"And go where?" He spoke with an unsettling calm, something that took all his self-control to assert. But he stood up, too. "This is a conversation that we need to have."

"Not while you're addressing me with such terms, Mr. Carson!"

He took a deep breath and nodded. "You're right. Names or, rather, adjectives, are useless. Let me put instead a question. Please," he added, gesturing to their chairs once more. "We _need_ to talk about this." With some reluctance, she returned to her chair, and after a moment's hesitation, he did, too. But he did not sit, as he often did, with his back to the wall, turning instead that he might rest his forearms on the table and look directly at her. And when his eyes took in the form of the woman there before him, the woman he loved more than anyone in the world, and he thought about the incident they were discussing, he could only shake his head in stunned disbelief.

"What on earth were you thinking of in colluding in such a conspiracy of omission?"

Despite his calm, there was a hard core to his words. She couldn't remember his ever speaking so severely. She was astonished at his lack of understanding. Clearly she had to put it to him more bluntly. Now she turned to face him, learning over the table toward him herself.

"Anna had been ... _assaulted_ in the most ... heinous manner! I did what I could to help and protect her in those circumstances, and I am more than _surprised_ at your insensitivity to all of this, Mr. Carson!"

"That's just it," he said coolly, not engaging with her on emotional level. "You didn't help and protect Anna. And in the process of _not_ helping her, you were negligent in your duties and you put this entire house at risk."

Oh, the blessed house! "I don't suppose a woman's reputation and peace of mind means _anything_ to you next to the reputation of _Downton Abbey_!" she said crossly. "I would've thought you'd _want_ to hush up such a thing for the benefit of your precious house!" Apparently he wasn't going to leave until they'd had this out, so she turned away from him again.

He frowned at her, not understanding why it was she did not comprehend his concerns. "The house has no meaning here in that way, Mrs. Hughes. The important thing is the people who live _in_ this house. And by your actions you put a large number of people - women - upstairs and down in danger. And why? To _help and protect_ a single woman. You are the housekeeper of Downton Abbey and an intelligent and level-headed member of society. Your _duty_ in this case was clear."

"And that was?" she demanded defiantly, glaring at him. All she could see was Anna's bruised and tear-stained face, and the thought that Mr. Carson could be so callous ... Well, he hadn't been there, had he? If he'd only seen her for himself, then he would have ... "I suppose I should've summoned the _men_ of the house and pleaded for protection! As if between you, you and Lord Grantham could have handled the whole situation!"

He took a deep breath. She was trying to provoke him, and though he could be led by his emotions, especially where she was concerned, he called upon his capacity for self-discipline to maintain an air of calm. "It was your duty to call the police."

His words intruded upon her and she growled in exasperation. "Anna was completely against it. She was hysterical with terror, Mr. Carson," she said, with a frosty note in her own voice. "She did not want ... what had happened ... to become public knowledge, both for her own sake and for Mr. Bates, and I agreed with her completely."

"Obviously," he said drily. "But a crime is not a matter for personal opinion, Mrs. Hughes. It is an offense against society. You cannot just hide it like a broken toy and hope it will go away."

It was not often that Mr. Carson held his temper and she lost hers, but this was a matter that could not be discussed with equanimity, and the fact that he was still so calm was an indication that he did _not understand at all and clearly never would_. "You are trivializing a very important matter, and I'm quite sure I don't want to have any more discussion on this topic!" She didn't know whether she was more angry or shocked at his relentless lack of sympathy. "It was an _excruciatingly_ personal matter, and if Anna did not want to make it public, that was her choice."

"You are wrong," Mr. Carson said firmly. "And so was she." He ignored the indignation in her face and pressed ahead. "It was natural for Anna to feel the way she did and to want to hide her ... shame – I say that from her perspective," he added quickly. "It does not reflect my view of a woman who has been so abominably ... violated. And only natural, too, for her to be concerned about Mr. Bates's reaction, given his history. No woman, and no man either, can be trusted to act rationally in such circumstances." He paused. Though it might not be apparent to Mrs. Hughes, he had a tremendous empathy both for Anna as the victim of the attack and for Mr. Bates in his helplessness to protect her. He took a deep breath and focused on Mrs. Hughes once more. "That is why it was all the more essential for _you_ to act responsibly. You let them down, Mrs. Hughes. You let us all down."

"What would you know!" she said scathingly. "You weren't there."

Mr. Carson did not want to persist with this conversation. It could not end well with regard to his relationship with Mrs. Hughes. She could not help but be angry with him and he had a very low tolerance for her disapprobation. But neither could he ignore the imperatives of his decades in service and the responsibilities that had come with his position as the senior staff member in the house. No matter what one's personal feelings, it was necessary _to do the right thing_ for the community, even at the expense of the individual. Furthermore, he was astounded that she should connive to conceal a crime of such magnitude.

"I don't have to have been there to know what the right thing to do was. When you chose not to contact the police, you let a criminal go free, imperiling the safety of every other woman in this house on his return visits, not to mention the women everywhere else the vile man went. We know that Anna was not an anomaly. We know that there were other victims. _You_ had the opportunity to put a stop to that by bringing his actions to the attention of the authorities. Even had he not been successfully prosecuted - and I understand that ... charges ... of that nature are very difficult to prove - his general society would have been alerted to his predatory nature. It would have been more difficult for him to _ply his habit_ in the future. At the very least, Lord Gillingham would have discharged him, thus eliminating some opportunities for his despicable pursuits."

"But..."

He didn't allow her to interrupt. "And there is the matter of the Bateses themselves. First of all, Mr. Bates _had a right to know_ what had happened to his wife. Again, her judgment was understandably confused, but you ought to have known better. And..."

"She was afraid Mr. Bates would kill him, Mr. Carson! She couldn't take the chance of him learning of ... it ... and risking being hanged!" What was wrong with the fool that he did not understand that?!

But Mr. Carson went on tenaciously. This was something about which he felt passionately, although it had only just come to him. "Mr. Bates would have been beside himself, as any man would be. But he still had a _right to know_. There are things that you _can't_ keep from the people you love, Mrs. Hughes. If someone means something to you at all, then you _must_ share both your sorrows _and_ your joys. Else your relationship with them is not what you think."

He had called them back, inadvertently, to the time when she'd had that cancer scare and hadn't confided in him about it. They had both endured their own agonies waiting out the test results on that one, she in her self-imposed isolation and he in an affected ignorance of her trial. She didn't think she'd been in the wrong there. That episode had revealed the changing nature of their relationship, but it would have been quite inappropriate for her to have presumed that fact ahead of the experience. Although he recognized it as a watershed moment as well, he felt the confidence of it would have _made_ their relationship.

"Much damage might have been averted by honesty. Knowing that Mr. Bates knew, the local police here and we ourselves could have helped monitor him until his equilibrium returned, as it would have done. As it did. Knowing that Mr. Bates knew, the vile valet himself might have been more circumspect in his behaviour. It is almost never a good ideal to conceal..."

"He knew that _I_ knew," she broke in. She was determined to derail his indictment in one way at least.

Mr. Carson was distracted. "Who did? Mr. Bates?"

"Well, yes, he did, too. But also Mr. ... the valet. I told him that I knew, that Mr. Bates did not as yet know, and that if he knew what was good for him, he'd watch his step." It was a satisfying memory. She'd confronted him, told him she knew exactly what had happened, and wouldn't let him get away with it when he tried to suggest that Anna had been a willing participant. Mr. Carson was trying to make them, she and Anna, out to be helpless women. Well, she had never been helpless in her life and the man hadn't frightened her either.

The silence from across the table caught her attention and she looked up to see Mr. Carson staring at her in slack-jawed horror. She had derailed him, but not as she had intended. This information had shaken him from the more aloof perspective of responsible household manager and brought it all down to the most personal level again. _She had confronted the man herself_!

"What?" she asked, a little belligerently, noting the stricken look that came over him.

He put a hand to his face, as if taken with a sudden headache. Not looking at her, he said, in a low voice, "You approached a man whom you _knew_ to have violently attacked ... _raped_...," he used the verb deliberately, as distasteful as it was to say it, for shock value, "...Anna, and you confronted him with his crime."

"I did," she responded defiantly. "He needed to know he hadn't gotten away with it."

He almost laughed, but of course it was anything but a laughing matter. And now he did look up at her, incomprehension edging out the anguish this conversation had stirred in him. "But he _did_ get away with it, Mrs. Hughes. You and Anna together, although more of the responsibility lies with you, _did_ let him get away with it. And as for confronting him, all that did was let him know that his secret was, indeed, safe with you. That wasn't a deterrence. It probably emboldened him."

"And then there is the matter of your own safety." His practiced self-discipline made it possible for him to keep the trembling in his heart from his voice. "Did you have no concern for that?"

She waved dismissively. "I spoke to him in broad daylight, in the boot room, with two dozen people up and down the passage. What was he going to do to me?"

He raised an eyebrow. Wasn't it obvious?

This elicited an impatient sound from her. "He wasn't going to ... do that... to me. I'm not a vulnerable young woman."

She was so sure of herself, so completely oblivious to the dangers of this whole situation to all of the women in the house including herself. He did not understand her perspective on this.

"You are mistaken, Mrs. Hughes. Sexual allure, youth, vulnerability, these are not the things that make a man like that behave as he does, except in so far as such targets enhance the ... the _thrill_ of the ...er... act. This is about power, not ... ." He almost said _sex_ , but that seemed too vulgar a word to use in a conversation with Mrs. Hughes. "...erm...intimate relations."

The conversation, already an unpleasant one, had taken a highly uncomfortable turn for Mr. Carson. He had begun to muse of late, with increasing frequency as their wedding grew nearer, about the idea of physical intimacy with the woman who sat before him now. But his conception of relations between husband and wife was of something beautiful, almost sacred, and he recoiled from Mr. Green's too-near proximity to his own intimate life and to the woman at the centre of it.

"I didn't realize you were so knowledgeable about these matters," she said coolly, breaking in on his thoughts.

He gazed at her for a long moment. "I am a man, Mrs. Hughes. I know the creature from the inside. And ... although I have spent much of my life here in the _cloistered halls_ of Downton Abbey, I am not quite the _naif_ you seem to think me." He spoke quietly.

They were now treading on the rim of an entirely different conversation, one that they had never had, or come close to having, regarding their own personal histories. He had no desire to have that conversation hard on the heels of this one.

"The point is," he went on hurriedly, "that a man like that would hardly have hesitated to use violence or ... force ... against you to keep you quiet. Or merely to assert his dominance over you. You took a grave risk."

"Well, nothing happened."

"No, nothing happened. We can be grateful for that."

It seemed the anger on both sides was spent. They both leaned back against the wall, staring across the room at nothing in particular so long as it was not each other.

Mrs. Hughes was shaken to her foundations. They'd had their disagreements, she and Mr. Carson, but never like this. They had taken opposing positions on a most serious matter and to her surprise, Mr. Carson had stuck to his views even in the face of her vigorous defense. He'd rebuked her occasionally over the years on professional matters, when she did not meet some arbitrary standard of house stewardship, which was practically the only issue on which he took a defense-to-the-death stance. But in more personal matters, while they might disagree without resolution - as in the matter of Mrs. Patmore's nephew - he had at least seemed distressed at crossing her. There was no semblance of regret in him about any aspect of this confrontation, however. That fact alone made her think.

Mr. Carson felt his heart racing. There was almost nothing he dreaded more, these days, than the idea of falling afoul of Mrs. Hughes. Did he imagine that she would stop loving him if they were not always on the same side? No. It was more that he thought they should always be able to find a common path because they did mean so much to each other. He did not feel comfortable going anywhere without her. But he could not agree with her on this. The story alarmed him as the butler of Downton Abbey, a position that made him responsible for the welfare of its inhabitants upstairs and down. It also frightened him to think that all the women in the house, some of whom to which he was more attached than others, had been at risk, especially as the man had returned to Downton at least twice after assaulting Anna. And it terrified him that Mrs. Hughes had confronted the brute. All this was important, and yet over everything else was a fundamental premise of law and order, that when a crime was committed, it must be reported. If she did not share this perspective with him, then they parted ways on a very critical matter.

He got to his feet and moved over to stand in front of her, silently cursing as he did so the restrictions that made it impossible for him to do what he really wanted to do, which was pull her into his arms.

"I'm sorry," he said.

This drew her attention at once. "What for?" She'd lost her belligerence. Now she was just confused.

"I'm sorry for the manner in which I've just spoken to you," he said. "I'm sorry for abusing you instead of explaining to you without recourse to name-calling. I was angry and frightened, and I let my feelings get the better of me. Please forgive me."

She stared at him, finding his contrition almost as startling as the things for which he was asking forgiveness. "I don't know but I should be the one apologizing, Mr. Carson. You've given me something to think about." She paused. "It may even be that you have a point."

He recognized a strategic retreat when he saw one and chose not to press the issue. "I know that you care for Anna, Mrs. Hughes. I know that you were only motivated by the best of intentions."

"Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say," she said quietly, looking away from him and feeling not a little sheepish. How _had_ she let that man back into the house knowing what he had done? She still wasn't prepared to concede her own vulnerability where the vile creature was concerned, but there had been other susceptible women in the house and she had not done all she could to protect them.

Now, he smiled a little. "I don't think you've got quite that far, Mrs. Hughes." He stepped more closely to her and reached out to take the hand that lay listlessly on the table. It was getting late and he could not part from her in this way. "Come," he said.

The fight was gone out of her now and she didn't have the energy to resist, so she followed him. He put his head out the door of the sitting room to see if anyone was about. She might have rolled her eyes at his furtiveness had she been in any mood for amusement. Instead, she stepped into the passage at his signal, pausing while he switched off the light and closed the door to her office. It was later than she'd thought, their conversation having gone on interminably. Somewhat to her surprise, he did not relinquish her hand as he led her to the stairs. They met no one as they ascended to the landing where the stairs divided to the separate entrances to the male and female servants' quarters above. There he paused and she looked up at him.

"Do you forgive me?" he asked, the troubled currents in his eyes making plain his concern.

She sighed and reached up to stroke his cheek with her free hand. "Oh, Charlie. I'll not tell you you're right about everything, or anything for that matter, not until I've thought about it. But I think there may be more right on your side than mine."

He put a quieting finger to her lips. "Let's not go through it again, love," he said softly.

"Come here, then," she said and she slid her hand around the back of his neck and leaned up to kiss him.

He met her halfway and put an arm around her, pulling her against him. They kissed and then he released her hand and held her more closely for a long moment.

"It frightens me," he murmured in her ear, resisting the temptation to take a tantalizing ear lobe in his teeth.

She did not know about his distractions. "That whole business?" she asked, responding to his words.

"No," he said. "How much I love you."

It occurred to her to say that there were many things in the world more frightening than great love, but she bit back the words because she thought she understood what he meant. She tightened her arms around him.

"I know what you mean, my love."


	3. Chapter 3: Lady Mary

**Lady Mary**

It was inevitable, perhaps, that they should clash over Lady Mary, although it never occurred to Mr. Carson that they might. Mrs. Hughes was less sanguine about it. She didn't go looking for trouble, but she wasn't surprised when it showed up.

Not knowing that it was even a possibility, he missed the warning signs. When Mrs. Hughes went up to bed one night without waiting for him, without what had become their usual moment together at the end of the day, without even pinning a note to his door telling him that she had retired, he was a little hurt. He'd seen her at dinner, of course, but he looked forward to their time alone. Whether it was a leisurely hour over sherry, or merely a half hour chat, or even just a few minutes simply of being together, it was something they now did as a couple. And although he would not admit it - certainly not to her, and not even to himself - he'd quickly come to appreciate the delight of a goodnight kiss when they parted on the stairs. It had gotten to the point where he was ignoring his own regulation that they be absolutely alone in order to indulge in this pleasure. He'd rather have the kiss and risk the consequences with regard to his authority or staff behaviour than do without. This shift in his own attitude shocked him a little, but desire overrode that sensibility. So he missed her, that evening, and his kiss, but he thought nothing more about it.

That something was amiss became more apparent the next morning. First, he did not see her at all before breakfast. This was unusual. Even if he missed her coming down on the stairs - and they had begun to coordinate their morning routines so that they did meet - she could always be found in her sitting room. But not that morning. Still, he was not unduly troubled. Mrs. Hughes had a job to do, after all, and it made varied demands on her.

When he met her at breakfast, however, he could no longer deny that these slight deviations from their informal schedule spoke to a larger problem. She was ... frosty. She didn't speak to him until he spoke to her, and when she responded it was in monosyllables, and she quickly turned from him again. And he could not fail to see that this turn of temper was directed at him. She had an animated conversation with Miss Baxter - right over him - about the latest news of Mr. Branson in America. She even remarked to Mr. Barrow on the number of letters he received - four - which was a lot for a man who was not renowned for his friendliness. But she responded to him peremptorily when he told her the estate workers had fixed the leak in the roof of their jointly-owned house, and turned away from him again.

He was perplexed by her manner and irritated by the knowing smirk on Barrow's face on overhearing this last exchange. This was, of course, exactly why marriage in the service quarters had always been prohibited. Not that they were married yet. But even though they weren't, everyone downstairs treated them as though they were. Everything not strictly related to the upstairs meals now seemed to be routed through her. No one asked him anything anymore. He might have been more grateful for the relief of this burden of dealing with everyone's trivial concerns if he were not convinced it was because no one thought he could deny her anything.

But that didn't explain this coolness for which he could find no reason. Barrow's smugness directed his course of action. This was not something that could be resolved at the breakfast table or with onlookers. He would leave it for the day, minimize his official interactions with her so as to avoid increasing her vexation, and take it up with her in the evening when they might find some time alone. Because he didn't have any idea what it could be.

She _was_ angry with him. But her coolness wasn't directed at him so much as it is a protective measure for herself. She knew it hurt him that she was so distant and also that it was apparent to the others that something was wrong. Her nature, however, rejected the explosive expression of anger. The only thing that came from heated outbursts were more hard words that were even harder to retract. Cold shoulders warmed up. Words lay on the mat forever. She realized she couldn't avoid him interminably and that he'd pin her down to a conversation on this, probably as early as that evening. She was hoping her anger would have diminished by then. Because there was really no point to having an argument. She already knew the outcome. It was only for her to accept an unpleasant reality, and for that she needed time, not a _post mortem_ of the specific incident that had brought it to their attention.

Everything was easier over a companionable glass of sherry, so he made certain to bring a bottle and the appropriate glasses with him when he went along as usual to her sitting room after the servants' dinner and when the rest of them were drifting off to their rooms. The weather front had not changed all day, making for a series of uncomfortable meals, which only made him more determined to get to the bottom of it. Since the announcement of their engagement they had been no more demonstrative - well, not _much_ more - than they had ever been, but there was a certain expectation, nonetheless, of felicity between them. And when that was not present, it was obvious to all that they had had a falling out. Mr. Carson did not enjoy his personal relations being an open book for staff amusement. Of one thing he was certain: some things ought _never_ to be a topic of conversation and he and Mrs. Hughes together were one of them.

"I missed you last night," he said, knocking on her half-open door and stepping inside.

"Really." Her back was to him as she sat at her desk, finishing up some paperwork. She wished she could tell him to go away, but he wouldn't even if she did. There was nothing for it but to have the conversation, although she knew she wasn't ready for it.

He put the bottle and glasses down on the side table and glanced at her, a little puzzled by this remark. He decided to press ahead. "Where were you?"

"I was where I always am in the evening," she replied curtly, still not looking at him. "In here. Where were _you_?"

She seemed annoyed, but he didn't know why. "In _my_ office. Lady Mary dropped in for a chat. Look... could you join me over here or at least look at me when we're talking?" It was an appeal, not a demand. He didn't like addressing her back.

She got up, stalked over to the table, and sat down in her usual chair, but kept her gaze averted. If she could only maintain her concentration, she thought, they might yet escape this without a more serious confrontation.

Taking this as progress, he poured them each a sherry and held hers out to her. She did not take it and, with a resigned sigh, he put it on the table next to her hand. He was beginning to think he should have brought whisky. A good stiff drink wouldn't have gone amiss in such circumstances. A similar thought crossed her mind.

There was nothing to do but be blunt about it. "Tell me what's wrong," he said. "Please."

"I've already told you." If she had to put it any more explicitly, she knew her anger would out.

He reviewed the conversation so far and wondered if he'd missed something. In an uncharacteristic move, and one he could take only because she _wasn't_ looking at him, he swallowed the sherry in one. It wasn't nearly as satisfying as whisky. He didn't like her cold shoulder. When he was angry about something, he gave way to heated expressions of his feelings, making it clear to all and sundry what transgressions had been committed and how he expected them to be redressed. Where he went hot, she went cold, cutting him off to work out his sins on his own. It was frustrating and counterproductive, and he would have been less than human if he did not think _his_ approach superior.

She said nothing, which was her preference. If he wanted to talk about it, then he would have to frame the conversation.

"You're angry because I didn't see you last night?" he asked tentatively. "But I told you, Lady Mary dropped in to see me."

She could only shake her head. How could he not see it? And now she did turn to him and stared at him so long he felt a slight chill in his bones. Only blue eyes could turn to ice like that.

"You're angry _because_ Lady Mary dropped in to see me," he concluded.

"Can't get anything past you, Charlie."

Charlie was the way she addressed him in private and he'd warmed to it, recognizing it as an appellation of affection. But there was a sarcastic inflection to it now and he didn't like that at all.

He shook his head. "I don't understand."

"I was waiting for you last night."

"And when I came to you, you'd already gone up. Without leaving a note." If there were transgressions here, his was not the only one.

"I couldn't wait _all_ night for Lady Mary to leave."

He still wondered why she was so irritated, but this, at least, was something he could address. "I was about to join you, as usual, when Lady Mary came by. I spoke to her and then I went looking for you."

"Do you know how long you spoke to Lady Mary?"

"No-o-o." He didn't. But he gathered from the way she said it, that it had been _too_ long. He tried to explain. "It was a rather involved conversation. She wanted to talk about the new Administration of Estates Act and what the abolition of primogeniture would mean for Downton."

"Really."

He wished she'd stop saying that and in that way. Mrs. Hughes could pack more belligerence into that one word than most countries could in a declaration of war. And ... that wasn't quite what Lady Mary had talked about, but it was close enough. She'd taken over management of the estate in the wake of Mr. Branson's departure and it was a heavy burden for her. She'd come to him, as she often did when troubled, for an injection of confidence in a moment of doubt. Lady Mary had admitted uncertainty as to her ability to rise to the growing challenges of that job. He had, of course, assured her that she was more than capable, that she had a fine, sharp intellect, a capacity to learn and adapt, and a rather impressive dose of common sense. And she'd wanted him to hold her, as he had often done over the years, a hug from him allowing her - just for a moment - to surrender all her cares and worries and to be again a little girl whose hurts might be mended so simply.

"Yes," he said finally, judiciously choosing not to unload upon Mrs. Hughes the full extent of Lady Mary's apprehensions.

Mrs. Hughes had not wanted to get into this with him. She knew all about his _special relationship_ with Lady Mary Crawley and accepted it for what it was. She and Lady Mary were not competitors for his affection. _That_ part was manageable. But it had not occurred to her that though they did not compete for space in his heart, they might still do so for his time. And she didn't think it was unreasonable to expect that she might come first with him there. But last night had disabused her of that notion. And as she'd waited for him, it had hurt more and more, and she'd let anger over the fact of it consume her. And it hadn't dissipated yet.

"Why you?"

"What do you mean?" He shifted uncomfortably under that searching glare.

"Why you?" she repeated. "Last time I checked, inheritance law was not among either your specialties or your duties at Downton." He sighed as she went on. "I would have thought His Lordship more conversant on the subject."

"She wanted to talk to _me_." And that was the heart of the matter. She had.

Mrs. Hughes was undeterred. "And I suppose it was just a coincidence that she appeared down here _after_ the servants' dinner at an hour that is about the only one we get to ourselves all day. As if she couldn't have spoken to you at any time _during_ the day, when you were upstairs, on _her_ time rather than on ..." _Ours_.

He poured himself another glass of sherry - she still hadn't touched hers - and leaned back against the wall, staring vacantly across the office, away from her still unsettling gaze. He understood now, he thought.

"She doesn't know about _our_ time," he said evenly, and ignored the sceptical sound she made. "How could she?"

"Perhaps not, although if she gave any thought at all to the matter, she might figure it out," she said grimly. "But _you_ know."

He glanced at her. She was looking away again. "What did you want me to do then? Throw her out?" He really didn't know what she wanted.

"You could have told her you had your own plans for the rest of the evening and couldn't it wait until tomorrow."

He was struggling, he really was, to understand why this bothered her so much. "She ... wanted to talk to me," he said again, a little desperately. "In private."

She laughed though there was nothing humorous in her laughter.

"And...," he hesitated. This might not go over very well, but he felt he ought to make it clear. "...you seem to think that my life ... our lives ... are divided into categories of public and private, and that the family exists exclusively in the former. But that isn't so. Lady Mary is a member of the family I ... we ... serve, but she's part of my private life, as well, and has, I think, a claim to make on what private time I have."

"Well." That answered that, didn't it? "How convenient for Lady Mary. She's got you at her beck and call any way you look at it."

He was growing frustrated with this, not least because he thought she had understood about Lady Mary, and now it appeared she did not. "That's not fair," he said firmly.

"Isn't it. Lady Mary's not dropping in on you after hours so that she might discuss her troubles. She's just reassuring herself that she can still command your exclusive attention. That whenever she wants you, you'll drop everything to indulge her. Never mind your own interests. Or mine." It was painful to say this, and even more painful to know that it was so.

They were silent for a moment.

"Are you jealous of her?" It was a dangerous question and he fully expected a rebuke.

But she was nothing if not honest. Instead of snapping at him, she sighed. "Maybe. A little. She gets what she wants from you and with very little effort and even less investment on her part."

She'd disarmed him by agreeing, instead of rejecting what he'd said. And she'd unsettled him, too. "Yes, I indulge her," he said softly. "She is like a child to me. And the relationship between a parent and child is never an equal one, is it? But you needn't worry I'm being shortchanged."

She wasn't ready to surrender on this one yet. "Well, you're fooling yourself if you think you're that important to her. She doesn't _need_ a father. She's got one. And a mother. And a sister." She moved hastily over that last one. No one could argue that Lady Mary and Lady Edith gave each other anything worth having. "And a string of suitors as long as your arm. She doesn't need _you,_ too." _There_ , she said to herself. _I've said the thing I shouldn't have said_. The reason why they shouldn't be talking at all.

"Well, maybe I need her!"

This burst from him with a fury he did not recognize as his own. He hauled himself to his feet and for a moment they both thought he might bolt from the room. He didn't. But he did move away, going over to stand behind the door, his back to her. He ran a hand through his hair as he took deep breaths, trying to compose himself. He hadn't realized what a sensitive issue this was for him.

"Charlie..." _You should have told him to go away, to give you some more time to cool down_. It was a losing battle. She didn't like losing battles, but this was one she should never have embarked upon. Now she had that even more difficult task of mending an unnecessary wound. "I know what she means to you," she said, by way of an apology.

There. That was the way she was supposed to say his name and it soothed him almost as much as his long, slow breathing. "No," he said heavily. "I don't think you do." And he realized, as he said it, that she didn't. How could she? She had only ever known about him and Lady Mary from the outside. He'd never explained it to her before. Perhaps he ought to do so. He turned around.

"I'm sorry."

It was the last thing she expected to hear from him. "Oh, Charlie." There he was, giving in again that they might move back to more comfortable ground. She made to get up to go to him, but he held a hand out to forestall her. She paused.

"We've had our disagreements about Lady Mary," he said, and she nodded. Hadn't they. Over long years he had never entertained a bad word about the eldest of the Crawley girls and she had been ... well, ...less uncritical. "And I've told you what a sweet child she was. But ... there's more to it than that."

He came to stand in front of the table, the toe of his shoe touching the side of her foot. He put his right hand down on the table top, his fingers drumming a slow march there. Her eyes were fixed on his, but he looked a little to his left, away from her.

"When I came to work at Downton the second time, after my ..." He still had trouble acknowledging his colourful past, "... time ... on the halls ... I was ... in a dark place." He spoke calmly, but with great feeling. "Charlie Grigg had ...," he sighed, rolled his eyes upward for a moment, and then looked away again, "... had proven himself a worthless and unreliable partner and friend. He stole everything that wasn't nailed down, engaged in behaviour that - even apart from the stealing - I found loathsome. And not finding that enough to torment me - although I don't think he ever did anything _on purpose_ to hurt me - convinced the woman _I_ loved that I would never act on my affections and that she could only count on him." He laughed hollowly. "And he wasn't far off, was he? Look at _us_. Twenty-five years in the same house and _still_ not gotten to the church yet."

She heard a hint of bitterness and despair in his voice and reached out to take his agitated hand. "It's not the same thing, Charlie, you know that." He clutched at her as at a lifeline, and she held onto him.

"Perhaps not." He shrugged. "But I came back here thinking that there was no cure for a broken heart so I must instead dedicate myself to a life in service where a loveless life was not an anomaly." He spoke firmly, not seeking pity. "And determined to take satisfaction in a job well done."

"And you have," she murmured.

"And I have," he echoed. "And that was that. Or so I thought. And then... s _he_ was born. Mary Josephine Crawley." He sighed and his voice softened. And then he did turn to look at her and she saw in his eyes a semblance of the feeling she had seen there so often in the past few months. "I'd never seen a baby before. Not properly, I mean. And there she was." He shook his head. "I don't know what it was, but I loved her. Right then. And well before she could talk and charm me with all those endearing little quirks of hers, I knew that I could go a different way. That there were other kinds of love - like the love of a child, and the love _for_ a child - and that I might enjoy that. She ... saved me, you see. I might otherwise have turned into some heartless curmudgeon who could _never_ have contemplated falling in love with the housekeeper, rather than one who managed it in a quarter of a century."

And they both laughed at that.

"Then, I'm very grateful to her," she said with a smile, and meant it, too.

And he reached for his chair and dragged it round that he might sit before her, his knees to her hers, and speak more intimately. He took her hands gently in his great big ones and fixed her with a passionate gaze that spoke more eloquently than words ever could of his feelings for her.

"So tell me, love, is it only that she stole our time together last night that's on your mind, or is it something else?"

She didn't doubt his feelings, but a wave of wistfulness came over her nonetheless. "There's no point in talking about something that just _is_ , Charlie," she said. "It's only something that I'll have to learn to accept. I should just get on with it. And I might have done so if you hadn't felt the need to press the issue."

"What are you talking about?"

Well, he'd asked. "I thought ... being engaged, being married ... would change things. I know it's your job, _our_ job, to serve the family and that we must accommodate that. But I thought ... in our private time that we...that _I_ might come first to you. And last night made me realize that it's hard to change lifetime habits, that while we're here, under this roof, that they must _always_ come first. It was a little jolt of reality, that's all. I just have to accept that it's not realistic to expect that to be any different." She felt wretched telling him this.

As she spoke, his gaze turned from concern to sorrow. "Oh, love, if I've given you the impression that that is how it _must_ be, then I am sorry indeed. I've handled things badly."

"No, you..."

"Please." He tightened his grip on her hands. And then he took a deep breath. "When I made the decision to ask you to marry me, I put you... _us_ ... first. You know that if His Lordship had objected, I'd have handed in my notice. You do know that?"

She nodded. Yes, she'd understood that in the moment.

"Lady Mary _is_ different," he conceded, and a tiny line of worry creased his forehead as he did so, "because ... I love her." He looked at her a little anxiously, but she nodded, accepting this because she did. "But ... what happened last night was my fault. I should have excused myself when she appeared, and come and told you she was there. Asked you what _you_ wanted to do, and then acted accordingly, because you're right, that was _our_ time." He lifted one of her hands to his lips. "I missed our kiss."

 _He knows how to make up_ , she thought to herself, and envied him a bit. He was much more at ease with the expression of his feelings, in private, than she was. She might learn something from him.

And then he was staring at her again, his dark eyes telling her as mere words never could how very much he loved her. "Don't ask me to choose between the two of you, love, because if you have to ask, then I've failed as a husband before we've even started."

"You've not failed, Mr. Carson," she said, smiling up at him. He did have a way of winning her heart.

"Charlie," he said softly, taking her face in his hands. "Hmm?"

She nodded. "Charlie."

"Now," he said, and his voice was almost its usual rich timbre again, "you think nothing has changed? That no revolution has taken place since Christmas Eve? Let me show you just how wrong you are there, Mrs. Hughes." And he took her hand, and got to his feet, and drew her up with him. A little shiver of anticipation ran up her spine. And even the fact that he'd prompted her to call him Charlie, but _still_ refused to address her as Elsie, didn't distract her from the potential delight of whatever he had in mind.

With more initiative than he usually demonstrated, he drew her towards him, even as he stepped back toward the door. And then, as they came abreast of her sitting room door, he slid his left arm about her waist and pulled her against him, leaning down to press his mouth to hers. Without thinking about it at all, she put her hands on his chest and leaned into him. And for a long moment, they kissed.

She wondered, absently, why he held her with only one arm, and when they relaxed and she opened her eyes again, she looked for the reason why. His right arm, which might have held her to him more closely still, was planted firmly against the door, ensuring that no casual interruption might occur. When she saw this, she burst into laughter and gave his arm a light slap.

"For goodness sake, Charlie!"

The rapturous expression on his face, a lingering holdover from their kisses, vanished under a look of not quite convincing indignation. "Anyone might walk in!" he said.

She just laughed. He smiled, happy to be on her side again.

"Even revolutions - _some_ of them anyway - take a little time to unfold," he said, and then bent his head to kiss her once more.


	4. Chapter 4: Confidences and You Know

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have taken my inspiration from an article in** _ **The Independent**_ **September 12, 2015, which addresses events in the opening episode of Season 6. This piece is not** _ **completely**_ **in sync with those that have preceded it in this series. But I wanted to write it anyway. EC.**

 **Confidences and ... You Know**

Mrs. Hughes knew it was an impossible conversation. That was why, of course, she enlisted Mrs. Patmore for the job. The cook, being her friend, was at least willing to try. Knowing Mrs. Patmore as she did, and Mr. Carson, too, Mrs. Hughes had every expectation that such an approach would lead straight to disaster, but what else could she do? The only other option was nothing at all, and that had proven wholly ineffective in addressing her anxieties.

As much as she enjoyed mixing in other people's business, especially business of a more risque nature, Mrs. Patmore had not had much direct experience at this level and she had, to her credit, initially resisted Mrs. Hughes's request. Even Mrs. Patmore could see that this was a situation fraught with potentially catastrophic complications - most of them involving her never being able to be in the same room as Mr. Carson again - but she weakened under her friend's pressure. And, seeing an opportunity late one afternoon, she slipped into Mr. Carson's office and attempted to put to him the dilemma that was keeping Mrs. Hughes awake nights.

Of course it _was_ disastrous. Mrs. Patmore was no diplomat. And although Mrs. Hughes had carefully drilled her in what to say and how to say it, naturally in the moment Mrs. Patmore got all flustered and it didn't come out quite right. Or at all right. If there really was a _right_ way to say something like that.

He had been very confused. This arose more from Mrs. Patmore's oblique approach than any deliberate obtuseness on his part. In the moment, their exchange reminded Mrs. Patmore of the time she had tried to explain to Daisy how Thomas was ... different. Terms such as "not a lady's man" and "a lost soul" meant nothing to Daisy and Mrs. Patmore had been obliged to give up, and it had eventually sorted itself out. The stakes were higher in the matter of the butler and the housekeeper. With Mr. Carson the cook at first spoke vaguely of "concerns" and then moved on to "inhibitions" and referred to "expectations." When he continued to stare at her in unamused incomprehension, she switched to allusions to his behaviour, commenting on how his "distance" bewildered Mrs. Hughes and left her in a quandary as to his "understanding" of their "understanding."

Mrs. Patmore was, among other things, a good-hearted soul who truly sought the best for her dear friend, and even for Mr. Carson, for whom she had considerable respect, if not a very developed emotional attachment. But patience was not one of her virtues, and when the daft man persisted in his fogginess about her point, she had finally done what, arguably, she did second best (cooking being her main claim to fame), and issued a statement of the situation in the bluntest of terms, in a manner far removed in words from the mandate given to her by Mrs. Hughes. That said, insofar as it conveyed the message, it could not have been clearer.

And still he came across confused, but now his bewilderment was a behavioural convention, feigned rather than real, and they both knew it. The dull red flush that swept his countenance from the rigid collar of his uniform to his hairline, even as he managed to maintain an expression of polite perplexity, was evidence of that. Mrs. Patmore, deeply embarrassed for them both, lost the courage of her flash of temper and, throwing her apron over her face, fled the room, without having secured the information Mrs. Hughes had commissioned her to extract and almost certain that her own days at Downton were numbered.

The results were predictable. Mrs. Patmore threw herself into dinner preparations with a fury that knew no bounds and frightened the younger kitchen maids half out of their wits. Mrs. Hughes, gathering from the atmosphere in the kitchen that the conversation had _not_ gone well, hid in her office and wondered how she would ever face Mr. Carson again. Mr. Carson relieved her of this burden, at least in the short term, by disappearing upstairs immediately after the exchange. He didn't come down for the servants' dinner, sending word by Mr. Barrow that upstairs obligations interfered and they must go ahead without him. The anomaly did not weigh heavily on most of the staff, but Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore exchanged looks of consternation and Mrs. Hughes's disquiet only increased.

She should've gone up right away after dinner, but his absence - which could only have been the result of that most unwelcome conversation - suggested to her that he was even more determined to avoid her than she was him, and so she lingered. And then was surprised and stricken when suddenly he appeared in the doorway of her sitting room. He did not come in, but only hovered there for a moment, not really looking at her, although she couldn't be certain because she was not looking at him.

"Mrs. Hughes, may I see you in my pantry for a moment?" His tone gave nothing away, but surely only because he'd had time to compose himself. He didn't wait for a response, but withdrew promptly, leaving her no choice, really. It was the last thing she wanted to do and she couldn't think that he was any more interested than she in a confrontation at this point, but there was nothing for it but to follow him. And it made her uneasy that he felt it necessary to conduct this interview in _his_ office when it was their evening practice to inhabit _her_ sitting room. It was, in her view, an ominous sign.

He was waiting just inside and when she entered the room, he promptly shut the door behind her. And locked it. In her astonishment, her eyes went immediately to the other door and she saw that it, too, was closed and locked. A semblance of her professional being asserted itself and she turned on him in incredulity.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. They both knew that locked doors were not permitted. It was an unspoken assumption of domestic service that locked doors meant that something untoward was unfolding behind them and, without even proof of actual impropriety, servants might be dismissed for such an infraction.

He was unmoved. "I am the butler here," he said firmly, giving her a dark look. "We are not going to be overheard and we are not going to be interrupted while we are having this conversation." He indicated a chair, with the suggestion that she sit, but he gave no indication of doing so himself. Instead, he paced the room like a caged bear, a rather disturbing image.

Mrs. Hughes declined to sit. His whole bearing made her more aware than ever how very big he was and she did not want to give him any more psychological advantage than he already had. He did not seem to notice when she moved across the room but remained standing. She wasn't afraid of him, not in a conventional sense. That is, she did not fear his physical wrath. But she could tell that he was angry, more angry than she had ever seen him before, and she did fear the impact that this anger might have on their relationship. It distressed her greatly, not least because she already had concerns enough about that very thing.

He didn't know where to start. He didn't know _how_ to start. There were so many aspects to this that alarmed and upset him that he could not focus his mind on any one of them. Finally, he managed to distill his churning thoughts into one pointed query. He stopped pacing and turned the full fury of his glare on her. "What was that about?"

"You mean Mrs. Patmore."

"Of course, I mean Mrs. Patmore!" he thundered, his eyes blazing.

He could close and lock doors all he liked, but did he really think no one would hear him? Despite her fragile emotional state - she had _not_ wanted to talk to him about this - Mrs. Hughes's long habit of self-respect and her professional character revolted against his temper, and her own eyes flashed. "You will not speak to me like that, Mr. Carson!" she said warningly.

He immediately stepped back, took a deep breath, and looked away for a moment. "Beg pardon, Mrs. Hughes," he said, more temperately. And when he turned to her again, although his eyes still raged, he spoke in a moderate voice. "Why was Mrs. Patmore in here earlier today speaking to me about... _for_... you?"

But she could not answer him, nor even look at him. This was why she had recruited Mrs. Patmore in the first place.

Getting no response, he tried a different approach. "I am presuming that this was not an initiative original to Mrs. Patmore," he said calmly. "That she came as a delegate for you?"

She nodded, still not looking at him.

He had suspected this, of course, but it did not please him to know it. "You know, then, the nature of the matter of which she spoke?" he continued, maintaining an even tone. He was sure he knew the answer to this, but he wanted to lay proper foundation.

She nodded again, wishing she had never started this. Wishing she could be anywhere but here right now. Wondering why she didn't just walk out. But her inherently practical nature militated against that. Avoiding an issue never made it go away.

"I am deeply grieved, Mrs. Hughes, that you should violate the privacy of the covenant between us by confiding in someone about ... _us_." And he _was_ deeply wounded. Surely their business _was their_ business. It made him uncomfortable enough knowing that the news of their engagement had probably sparked crude speculation among the lower minds of the servants' hall. There was certainly no need to _encourage_ that kind of thinking by confiding in anyone. He did not think Mrs. Patmore a woman with a sewer-like mind, but he had always found her slightly earthier sense of humour distasteful and had no wish to give her material in which to indulge it.

She still said nothing. He couldn't possibly understand.

Unlike Mrs. Patmore, Mr. Carson actually did have a lot of patience, although it was being sorely tried now. He had never known Mrs. Hughes to be so reticent. She was, he had often thought, alarmingly frank, especially in conversation with him. So why was she so troubled now?

"What did she say to you?" Mrs. Hughes asked faintly. She had not had a report from Mrs. Patmore and now thought perhaps she ought to get the facts before she waded into this cesspool of her own making.

Mr. Carson stared at her, she still not looking at him, and thought perhaps it might be an idea to turn her usual plain-spokenness against her. "She said..." He paused. He had to gather his own courage for this kind of a conversation, one he hadn't even known he wanted to avoid because he'd never imagined the possibility of it. "She asked me...," and he spoke very deliberately, "...whether I was interested in holding hands by the fire, one bed or two, or something more along the lines of Lady Mary and the Turkish gentleman!"

Mrs. Hughes had winced at each of the first two scenarios, feeling the brutal frankness of Mrs. Patmore's options as painfully as Mr. Carson had, but she looked up sharply at this last possibility, even more startled than shocked. "She never said that!"

He tried to affect some form of dignity. "Something to that effect," he said stiffly. He had to be distressed to make reference to Lady Mary's long-ago indiscretion. But it served here as a useful allusion, one they both understood, thus making it unnecessary to define it further, or to burden Mrs. Hughes with Mrs. Patmore's more repugnant image. But it was a little much for him all the same. His shoulders crumpled and his head bowed, and he sank into the chair he had drawn up for her. He could not understand how it had come to this. Didn't men and women get engaged and married every day without the sordid complications of intercession by the likes of a Mrs. Patmore? Perhaps he really was too old for this. "Why did you feel the need to speak to Mrs. Patmore at all?" he asked, and now his tone was almost plaintive.

She almost felt sorry for him, and would have were her own concerns not so pressing. "I needed to talk to someone," she admitted. "There are things...about marriage...that I need to talk about." That told him nothing, but she didn't have the words to tell him exactly what she meant.

"Why can't you talk to me?" he asked, staring up at her now, completely without understanding.

She blushed and looked away. "I can't talk to you about them."

"Why ever not?"

"Because...they're about you."

He sighed and rolled his head back for a moment, staring at the ceiling as if some magical solution might appear there. And then he took a deep breath and focused on her once more. "If your worries concern me, don't you think you owe it to me to talk _to_ me? What is this about?"

She did look at him then and the distress in her face made his heart ache for her. "What do you think?" she said wretchedly. He clearly did not understand at all. "Women need to talk to women," she said finally.

This allowed him to sidestep the troublesome focal point for the moment. "Why'd you have to pick _her_ , then?"

Mrs. Hughes bristled a little. "What do you mean?"

He sighed again. "Why couldn't you confide in Anna if you had questions about ... _that_? At least _she's_ discrete. Mrs. Patmore is an open book. Anyone could get anything out of her." As he had reason to know. "Mr. Barrow could have the substance of your conversations out of her in a minute, she's so easy to manipulate. And ... and... what does _she_ know about ... _anything_ that might concern you ... in that line of things? At least Anna is married." He didn't want her to talk to anyone about anything, was not at all encouraging her to turn next to Anna - all he needed was _another_ member of staff whose eyes he'd never be able to meet again - but _Mrs. Patmore_?!

"She's my friend!" Mrs. Hughes said heatedly. "And ... she's my age. Anna is ... younger. Beautiful." This conversation was exhausting. She went around his desk and collapsed into his chair. They stared at each other across his desk.

He was bewildered. "What's that got to do with anything?" he demanded.

"Everything," she said simply.

They sat in silence for a long moment.

"Don't you have any concerns?" she asked finally, voicing something she had wondered about.

"About what?" He actually looked blank for a moment. And then shook his head vigorously. "No!" he said forcefully, and looked away, as if she had asked him something highly distasteful.

"And you don't want to talk to anybody about ...?"

A look of horror descended on him. "Absolutely not! What are you suggesting? That I might want to have a _chat_ with _His Lordship_ about..." He was not sure how much more of this he could stand, although as it was clearly a major problem for her, he realized they could not desist until it was resolved. Their marriage might very well depend upon it.

She shrugged. "Well, no, not His Lordship," she conceded, taking him seriously, "...but perhaps Mr. Bates..."

"I don't need to talk to ANYONE!" He was back to fury again. "And I'm _not_ talking to anyone. Except you. When the time comes." And he was looking forward to that even less than he already had.

"But...when will that be?"

"Well... _after_ we're married, of course." He'd always thought Mrs. Hughes a woman of superior intelligence and tremendous common sense, but this conversation was giving him to doubt.

"But _after_ is too late!" she protested. "I need to know things _before_ , so that I can be ... prepared. More comfortable."

He was astonished. "But ... you won't be. You can't be. This isn't an examination you can study for, Mrs. Hughes. It's something that happens in the moment."

She was a little distracted. "You sound so knowledgeable."

"Well, I've been thinking about it!" he declared, and then sighed again. "And knowing you've been chatting up Mrs. Patmore about it is going to _increase_ , not _decrease_ , any apprehensions _I_ might have had. Mrs. Patmore. Of all people!" He wondered if he were ever going to recover.

"But... I have worries!" She couldn't put it any more plainly than that. Mrs. Hughes was not one to let her emotions get the better of her, but this conversation was making her feel increasingly fragile. She'd be weeping in another moment and that was not like her at all.

"Like what?" This was not a conversation he had ever wanted to have, but if they were going to have it, then surely they ought to put their cards on the table.

"I can't tell you."

He could have cried with frustration. "Why not?" he pleaded, leaning forward in his chair.

"Because you're the _man_!"

"I'm the man you're going to be _with_!" he countered, exasperated.

"But it would just make you ... and me ... so uncomfortable."

"More uncomfortable than _this_?!" She had to be kidding. "I'm already more uncomfortable than I've ever been in my life! Please," he added, his voice softening. "Tell me."

"I don't know what you want," she said quietly. "I don't know what you expect of me." And that was the crux of it, really. She glanced up at him and he looked puzzled. This gave her a glimpse of understanding into Mrs. Patmore's descent into bluntness. "The options Mrs. Patmore set out for you," she added. "I don't know what you want." And she was suddenly grateful to Mrs. Patmore for having done so, because she knew she could not.

He leaned back heavily into his chair and just stared at her. Again they lapsed into silence, and the momentary respite allowed some semblance of calm to return to them both.

"Look," he said, speaking more quietly than he had done all evening, "I understand that you might be nervous. It's natural. _I'm_ nervous."

"But ... I'm afraid you won't be ... happy ... with me," she said. That conveyed nothing.

"What have I got to compare it with?" he said immediately, and then recoiled in dismay at his own tactlessness. "That didn't come out quite the way I meant it," he said hastily. "I meant ... surely we share those kinds of apprehensions." He didn't ... really. To this point he hadn't given it much thought.

"I'm sixty years old," she said, and looked up at him wistfully.

"I'm older than that," he said - five years older, to be accurate - not quite getting her point, except that it underlined the rather pathetic fact of their mutual inexperience.

"It's just that I can't be very ... attractive to you." There. She'd said it. It was finally out there on the mat and they'd have to address it.

"Again," he said evenly, "neither of us are exactly in our physical prime." And stumbled again. "I'm sorry, that didn't come out right either."

She shrugged. "Maybe you're beginning to understand why I found this so difficult to discuss with you."

"Maybe so," he said gently. "But I really _am_ the best person to speak to about it. Tell me, _why_ has this made you doubt the nature of our relationship?"

Clearly Mrs. Patmore hadn't gotten to that, despite her careful priming by Mrs. Hughes. "Well, we've come this far," she sighed. "I suppose things can't get any worse for saying it all."

He did not find that encouraging. But at least she was looking at him now.

"Everything was perfect on Christmas Eve. You were so ... loving. I'd never expected so much ... feeling ... from you. I felt overwhelmed with your love."

He smiled at this. It was a pleasant memory.

"And for a few days you were so attentive and loving and ... I was convinced that we really were experiencing ... well, _romantic_ love. And at our ages. It fairly swept me off my feet."

There was a reservation coming here, and his brow crinkled in anticipation. His conception of their relationship was one where the mood of Christmas Eve still held forth.

Her voice went flat. "And then you had that attitude about the names. And you hardly come near me. And you make it seem like it's a chore to kiss me. And I just began to wonder if this wasn't all a matter of convenience that you might have someone by your side as you aged, especially given the turbulence in the house with regard to the future. And ... while I might even have gone for that had you put it to me – as you did when you made the initial business proposal about the house – I really felt that you'd meant something different. I'd gotten my hopes up. And ... I admit it, I've been disappointed to think that that ... well, maybe that sitting by the fire together was what you really had in mind."

He listened. He did not like what he heard, did not agree with the assertions she was making, but listened to what _she_ was saying. This is what she thought. Of him. It saddened him more than he could ever say that this is what she thought of him, and worse, that she had felt she couldn't say it to him.

Once more silence descended upon them.

Mrs. Hughes despaired. There was nothing positive he could take from this conversation. It could, therefore, only diminish what was between them, whatever that had been. She had hurt him by making her anxieties plain to him. Why had she not had the wherewithal to swallow her own disappointment and to make the best of it? The fact of the matter was that a marriage of convenience to Mr. Carson was indeed a pleasant prospect. They got along so well. They knew each other, habits and irritations, wants and needs, to the point that their lives might have carried on seamlessly from what had been. But now she had indicated to him that that would not satisfy her, when in fact it still probably would, and yet he would not henceforth be comfortable or ever enjoy their limited togetherness as he once might have done, because she had spoken up. She had ruined everything.

Mr. Carson was perplexed. He'd made a grave error. It was a natural error, he thought, but a serious one all the same, and it had caused Mrs. Hughes a tremendous lot of distress and that pained him greatly. This was the most uncomfortable conversation he had ever had and, unfortunately, it wasn't over yet. Because he knew now that he had made assumptions about Mrs. Hughes's worldliness that were unfounded. He had assumed, because she affected an air of wisdom about the mysteries of human interaction, that she actually did know quite a lot. He had sometimes thought she knew more of human nature than he did. And he had acted upon that, presuming understanding on her part where she really had no foundation. As discomfiting as this might be for the two of them, he realized he was going to have to explain to her some of the facts of life.

"I am a man, Mrs. Hughes."

This statement caught her by surprise. It was a very strange thing to say. She looked at him and found him staring across the desk at her, his back straight, his whole posture a little formal, but not uncomfortably so. She sensed that he had something to say here, and that now it was her turn to listen to him.

"And men," he went on, determined to maintain eye contact with her, "think about ... intimate relations with women ... constantly. You have no idea." She hadn't. "It is, of course, an even greater preoccupation of younger men - and the reason why I police the male staff so diligently, and require them to adhere to a standard of decorum, and tolerate absolutely _no_ horseplay whatsoever. It requires a great deal of discipline - internal discipline, and the external discipline imposed by work, and sport, and intellectual pursuits - to keep that ... inclination ... in check. It becomes more ... manageable ... with age, though it does not disappear. That is the natural state of the male, although it is vulgar and repulsive, and all the more reason why it is absolutely necessary for young women to guard their virtue so assiduously, because no young man, given the opportunity, will."

"When coupled with _love_ for a specific woman this ... base impulse is transformed. It becomes something ... beautiful. Sacred, almost. Rather than ... merely functional." He spoke with conviction. "In this form, it is a pillar of the intimacy between a husband and wife. The animal impulse is then harnessed to the good of the relationship."

"I have had a great deal of practice, Mrs. Hughes, in containing my ... natural impulses. Work and ... maturity...," that was a better word than _age_ , "... have combined to ensure a strict discipline with regard to that part of my ... nature. And, hrmm, ... the absence of temptation has also been a factor." There were those who might criticize Mr. Carson of Downton Abbey on professional grounds (although he would take issue with them on anything, believing his work flawless), but no one could ever question his conduct where staff members (or anyone else) of the opposite sex were concerned.

"Circumstances have changed in recent months." He didn't really want to have to spell it out for her, but clarity was the order of the day and so he would do so. Better to clear the air. "Admitting to myself that I had ... feelings ... for you has made the governance of such impulses ... more of a challenge than it has been in years." Decades. He was not about to confess that. "If I have been distant or muted or cool with regard to you since Christmas Eve - and it is news to me that I have been – then you may put it down to this. For years we have lived and worked side by side in perfect harmony. But ever since I have known that it is but a matter of time before you become my wife, you have been the perfect distraction. To let go of my routines and behaviours, the strictures that keep me within the bounds of proper conduct - even in such small matters as a name or a gentle kiss - would be to unleash the baser creature within. I would cease to care about how the upstairs table was set, or whether the wine was properly decanted, and give myself over to the work of finding hay in which to roll with you." He said all of this with the most dispassionate air and without breaking eye contact with her. But on this final note, his eyes and his head fell, and he held out his hands in supplication.

"Beg pardon for that vulgarity, Mrs. Hughes. But I have tried to be as honest with you as possible."

"Oh, Mr. Carson." Her cheeks had warmed as he spoke, for his revelations were, indeed, a novelty to her, although she had always suspected _some_ men of being rather preoccupied with that particular function. That _all_ men, including the honourable and respectable man before her, were at least prone to such a distraction _did_ take her by surprise. But far more astonishing to her in this moment was the utter frankness with which he had presented this information to her and the ... if not ease, at least the maturity and discretion ...with which he had imparted such intimate and explicit knowledge. And she had thought herself a woman of the world.

"One final point in this line, Mrs. Hughes." He was looking at her again and it appeared that all this confessing had been good for his soul, for he seemed almost cheerful. "To answer the question you sent Mrs. Patmore in to ask, my interest lies somewhere between one bed and the Turkish diplomat. I don't have the energy of that vigorous young man, but I'm far from dead." He stood up then. "Come here," he said gently, moving toward her.

They met by the side of his desk. She folded her hands before her and looked up at him demurely. How much their relationship had changed in the course of an evening. And changed for the better. Her discomfort about their future together had not wholly dissipated. She was still nervous, but it was the kind of nervousness to which he had referred earlier. _Not-knowing_ was still a little frightening, but it was also exhilarating. Now she could feel anticipation, rather than apprehension, about what was to come between them.

A surprising sense of calm had settled on him. Had he envisaged such a conversation between them, he would have been certain of it ending with him in the lavatory vomiting in emotional distress. Never would he have imagined an explicit exploration of this very private corner of his being to be so liberating. More than anything else, however, the transformation of her countenance from distress to relief to happiness had made it all worthwhile. Now he had only one more confidence to impart to her. He put his hands gently on her arms, holding her a few inches before him, and looking into her eyes with all the emotional intensity it was possible to convey through his own searching gaze.

"I thought it necessary to be frank with you, Mrs. Hughes, about my ... interests. And I have been. But there is one more thing to add before we can retire for, I hope, a more peaceful night's sleep than you may have had in a while. I have spoken to you of my feelings. Do not mistake them for expectations. As compelling as this ... aspect ... of marriage is, it is only one part of it, as I see it. Do not think that because this is where my feelings lie in this matter, that yours must do so also. I love you. And I want to marry you, come what may. It is for _you_ to choose the nature of our marriage, and whether it will be one bed or two, as friends or as passionate lovers. You must not conform to my desires in this, but be true to your own needs and desires."

His hands slid up her arms and over her shoulders until they came to rest on each side of her head, his palms set gently against her face, his fingers spread out and away from her hair, that he might not put a strand out of place. "I think that's a question you don't need to answer before our wedding night," he said softly. And leaning forward he pressed his lips to her forehead in a gentle but lingering kiss.

When he released her, they said nothing. She smiled at him, though, and hoped that he knew how she would respond. Because she knew. Now.


	5. Chapter 5: Domestic Challenges, Part I

**DISAGREEMENTS**

 **Disclaimer:** All rights to all characters and settings, as well as to the overall concept, of this story, belong of course to Julian Fellowes. I am borrowing them. EC.

 **Chapter 5 Domestic Challenges, PART I***

 **Mrs. Patmore's Insights**

Mrs. Hughes came into the kitchen to find Mrs. Patmore and Daisy arranging an assortment of foods in a large picnic basket that sat on the table.

"Who's dining at home this time?" she asked.

"Nobody," Mrs. Patmore said brightly. "It's to welcome Daisy's Mr. Mason. He's moving into Yew Tree Farm today."

"Oh, well. Wish him well for me. And I hope he gets more fun out of his hamper than Mr. Carson did," Mrs. Hughes added, with a mingled air of exasperation and resignation.

Mrs. Patmore, who had packed the basket, was prepared to take umbrage. "What was wrong with it, then?" she asked, a little belligerently.

"Nothing was wrong with it," Mrs. Hughes said emphatically. "It's only that I don't seem to cook like his mother." She rolled her eyes to indicate what she thought of that.

"It's a wonder he can even remember what his mother's cooking was like," Mrs. Patmore said, crinkling her brow a little, "when he's not had it in fifty years."

"I think he's just making it up."

Mrs. Patmore smiled sympathetically. "We always knew he was rather old to be trained up as a husband. I think the only answer to that is _Men!_ and _Sigh!_ " ******

They laughed it off.

Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore were less amused, for different reasons, when, a few days later, Mr. Carson brought up the supper in the cottage and essentially reaffirmed his assessment of his wife's effort as mediocre at best. His passing comment that "it's been a while since she played with her patty pans," elicited a raised eyebrow from both women. Once more Mrs. Hughes played the martyr, heaving a long-suffering sigh as she followed him out of the kitchen.

Mrs. Patmore was less sanguine about it. "Husbands have found poison in their soup for less," she had intoned ominously to Daisy whose eyes, already round with astonishment at Mr. Carson's unflattering remarks about his wife, now grew owl-like, thrilled and shocked at the same time.

"And now he's on about how I make the bed and that I'm not dusting the cottage well enough," an indignant Mrs. Hughes related, only a few mornings later. "I've been a housekeeper for thirty years and he finds fault with everything!"

Daisy, who could sympathize with someone whose work faced constant criticism, ventured into the conversation. "Doesn't he appreciate you?"

"He doesn't appear to appreciate my housework very much," Mrs. Hughes replied, and didn't even notice that, by responding to Daisy, she had made her an active participant in the conversation.

Mrs. Patmore noticed. "Can you fetch the pastry from the larder, please, Daisy?" Not realizing that she was being excluded again, Daisy moved off obligingly. The cook wasn't adverse to Daisy's presence in itself, but she didn't like the idea of her assistant cook being privy to so much information about the Carsons' personal lives.

"What are you telling me this for?" she asked.

Mrs. Hughes stared at her, puzzled. "Just making conversation," she said lightly.

Mrs. Patmore wondered.

The next time it came up, Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore had just left the latter's cottage, where they had been making sure that all was ready for Mrs. Patmore's venture into the world of bed-and-breakfasts.

"I'd like to make a thing about my breakfasts," Mrs. Patmore declared. "I'd like to be known for them."

"And so you should be," Mrs. Hughes said agreeably. "Perhaps I'll send Mr. Carson over to you. Goodness knows, he wasn't happy with the breakfast I served up to him the other morning."

"What was it this time?" Mrs. Patmore felt like she was reading from a script she'd seen before.

"Oh, the usual. Everything."

It seemed odd to Mrs. Patmore that this ongoing drama generated little more than a shrug of forebearance from the housekeeper. But, no matter. Although Mrs. Patmore had hoped they might have adjusted to each other by now, she had devised a solution in case they had not.

"I've had an idea about Mr. Carson," she said, drawing her companion's interest. Mrs. Patmore's face was alight with inspiration. "Why don't you arrange to have dinner at the cottage on Thursday. The family's away. And then pretend to hurt your wrist. I'll bandage it up for you just to make it look authentic. Then he'll have to prepare the meal. I think that'll give him some insight into just what he's been asking of you!" She grinned in anticipation. "Yes, I'll bet that will tame him and his outlandish demands!"

Mrs. Patmore was so pleased with her own ingenuity that it took her a moment to realize that Mrs. Hughes had not responded with enthusiasm. Indeed, the housekeeper was looking at her with dismay.

"What is it?"

"I can't do that!" Mrs. Hughes declared, sounding affronted.

"Why not?" It seemed quite a reasonable plan to Mrs. Patmore. If the objective was to retrain Mr. Carson, she was certain of its success.

"It would be a lie!" Mrs. Hughes said indignantly. "We don't lie to one another, Mr. Carson and I. What kind of a marriage would we have if we did?!"

"A normal one?" Mrs. Patmore suggested. "I'm not saying you should deceive him with another man! It's just a little white lie."

"A lie is a lie," Mrs. Hughes said, with more than a little sanctimoniousness. This prompted her friend to a dramatic rolling of eyes that she did not even bother to conceal from Mrs. Hughes.

"I don't think you want a solution," Mrs. Patmore said shrewdly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I think you tell me your woes with Mr. Carson because you _don't_ want to do anything about it."

"I'm still not following you." Mrs. Hughes frowned a little.

"If this really bothered you..."

"It _does_ really bother me!" Mrs. Hughes interrupted. "How would you like to be told that your cooking wasn't up to scratch when you've been doing it for thirty years?"

"No man would ever say that to me twice, I can assure you of that."

The set of her countenance and the flat but final tone of her words gave Mrs. Hughes pause. The insinuation of danger in Mrs. Patmore's words suggested a reaction that might range anywhere from a sharp rebuke to withdrawal of benefits (culinary or marital), to physical violence. It was an alarming response at any level.

"What I mean," Mrs. Patmore said loudly, seeing the trepidation in Mrs. Hughes's eyes, "was that if this were something that truly bothered you, you would be taking it up with _him_ , not _me_. He's the one complaining, after all."

This direction appeared to be almost as shocking to Mrs. Hughes as the implied extremes of Mrs. Patmore's previous remark.

"I can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Because...I'm his wife."

"And how's that stopping you?"

"Well, I'm... _supposed_ to be responsible for the cooking and maintenance of the house."

Mrs. Patmore decided not to fight that battle. "Do you think you're doing a bad job?"

"No," Mrs. Hughes said firmly. "I don't cook as well as you do, of course..."

"I'm glad we're both agreed on that," Mrs. Patmore muttered.

"...but everything is properly cooked and tasty enough. _I_ enjoy my own cooking. And the house is clean and the bed is properly made."

"Then why are you letting him get away with this nonsense?"

"Because..." Mrs. Hughes faltered.

"Because you're his wife," Mrs. Patmore finished.

Hearing the words issuing from Mrs. Patmore's mouth, this did not seem a very satisfactory answer to Mrs. Hughes, but she couldn't get beyond it."

"Shall I tell you what I think?"

Mrs. Hughes suspected that this was a rhetorical question.

"I think that if Mr. Carson the Butler spoke to Mrs. Hughes the Housekeeper the way Mr. Carson the Husband speaks to Mrs. Hughes the Wife, there would be hell to pay."

"That's different," Mrs. Hughes said immediately.

The cook laughed. "No, it isn't. In fact, it would be more appropriate for the Housekeeper to give way to the Butler. But when have you ever done that?"

A little worry line creased Mrs. Hughes's brow as she thought about this.

"You haven't let that man get away with anything in years!" Mrs. Patmore said forcefully. "And he has been nothing but respectful toward you in your capacity as housekeeper. So why are you lying there like a doormat while he insults everything about you from your cooking to your housekeeping skills? Is he demeaning of you in _every_ aspect of your marriage?"

It was a long, silent moment while Mrs. Patmore stared very hard at her friend and Mrs. Hughes tried to discern what she meant by this peculiar query.

"Oh!" She finally understood it. "No!" she snapped. "He's...he's...very...appreciative...about other aspects." Her face felt a little warm and she frowned reproachfully at Mrs. Patmore. This was not at all an appropriate subject for conversation between them.

Mrs. Patmore was a little relieved by this response, as curt as it was. "So he's not stupid, then," she concluded. "I think you need to get to the bottom of this," she went on. "Have it out with him. Only, when you do, take Mrs. Hughes the Housekeeper into the room with you, because Mrs. Hughes the Wife is a bit of a mousy little thing." And she ignored the vexed look on Mrs. Hughes's face. Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes were not, to her mind, the best advertisement for relationships in the autumn of life. They seemed to need a lot of outside direction about matters that were fundamentally issues of common sense.

"Anyway," she added. "If you won't do the wounded wrist thing, I think you'll _have_ to speak to him." She was not at all confident that Mrs. Hughes agreed.

 ***AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Yes, here it is, the dreaded "cooking" plot. I think it's a Season 6 Chelsie standard. As if it wasn't tedious enough in the original, it's going to take me two chapters to sort out in fanfiction.

I didn't like this plot line. It struck me that Julian Fellowes spent five seasons crafting this beautiful framework of a relationship between Carson and Mrs. Hughes, and in making their story a compelling and appealing depiction of later-in-life romance. It also took a lot of work to make Carson, who is prone to pomposity, into such a sympathetic character. Then, in Season 6, Baron Fellowes turned to them for comic relief, first in the discussion regarding intimate relations, and then, more annoyingly, in the cooking story. I'm quite prepared to accept Carson as a man of his time and to believe that he could be so obnoxious. But I really didn't like what I perceived as this assault on the credibility of the characters. They, and the actors who played them, deserved better. No doubt some will take issue with me on this interpretation.

Here, as in the "sex" plot line (which I addressed in Chapter 4), I thought it more convincing that Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson should have a conversation about it like adults, rather than resorting to go-betweens or deceptive devices like the wrist maneuvre.

 **** AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This and parts of the subsequent conversations have been drawn from Season 6, Episodes 5, 6, and 7. But I have altered them to suit my purposes. They are canon in spirit, if not in exact wording.


	6. Chapter 6 Domestic Challenges, Part II

**DISAGREEMENTS**

 **Chapter 5 Domestic Challenges, PART II**

 **Husbands and Wives**

It was never, of course, an easy thing to be told what a fool you were and Mrs. Hughes felt that that was a little of what had occurred in her conversation with Mrs. Patmore. So she tried to put it out of her mind for a few days and to refrain from confessing to the cook any more of Mr. Carson's patronizing critiques. Not that he stopped issuing them. That fact alone prompted her to review the exchange with her friend and to consider, once she'd gotten past the feeling of being scolded like a silly young wife, the substance of it.

She kept coming back to Mrs. Patmore's observation on the difference between Mrs. Hughes the Housekeeper versus Mrs. Hughes the wife. Mrs. Patmore didn't use the word _role_ , but the term preyed on her mind. She wasn't adverse to that description when it came to her position as housekeeper. Mr. Carson liked to view himself _as_ the butler of Downton Abbey, while she preferred to think that she _worked_ as the housekeeper there. When she left the great house every night, she hung up that identity like an apron on a hook in her sitting room, and then she was simply _Mrs. Hughes_. Or _Mrs. Carson_. What if Mrs. Hughes the Wife was a _role_ , too? Was she _acting_ like a wife when she was making dinner at the cottage, or seeing to the various domestic chores there, or absorbing her husband's critical comments about how she did these things? Was she also _acting_ like a wife in their intimate relationship, playing the part she thought was expected of her there?

No. She came up short on that last one. What happened between them there was not the same. She was certain of it, even though she could not quite explain why.

If she was acting a role, then she clearly wasn't doing a very good job of it, or Mr. Carson would have less to say on the subject of cooking and cleaning and bed-making. How to resolve this? _Have it out with him_ , Mrs. Patmore had said. _And take Mrs. Hughes the Housekeeper into the room with you_.

It was true enough that she did not tolerate groundless criticism from Mr. Carson at the Abbey. When he complained about the noise of the electric vacuum cleaner when they'd introduced it years ago, she had rejected his grumbling as the reaction of someone who had never spent hours on his knees with a dustpan and brush. Whenever he challenged her about the behaviour of the maids, she curtly reminded him of her jurisdictional authority. Why did she think that she must accept like infringements on areas of her expertise and authority in their home? She did not object to cooking the meals or making the bed. After all, he had his chores around the cottage, too, such as re-filling the coal buckets and tending to the fires. But there was no real justification for her submission in the face of his complaints.

Except that that was how she thought a wife should behave. Maybe, it occurred to her, that didn't have to be so. Maybe she ought to invite Mrs. Hughes the Housekeeper home for a conversation with Mr. Carson and see what happened.

She found her opportunity one evening when the younger family members were all in London and His Lordship and Her Ladyship retired early, something they did not often do. But it was a welcome development to all in the servants' hall as it meant they could make an early evening of it. Getting a few extra hours of sleep was a luxury even the energetic Andy embraced. It meant that the Carsons could spend some time alone together at the cottage without calculating what their conversation was costing them in terms of their well-being the next day.

It was a pity to have waste such an occasion in a serious discussion rather than more frivolous pursuits. She thought perhaps that the latter was where her husband's mind tended as he hummed a lively tune on their walk back to the cottage. Fortunately, he liked to "do things properly," as he had often asserted, and this meant enjoying a glass of wine together in their sitting room before moving on to other things, and this gave her the opening she needed.

"Do you know how to roast a chicken?" she asked, taking one of the chairs by the fire rather than sitting beside him on the sofa. It was perhaps an artless beginning, but it served her purposes.

He smiled at her, thinking she needed direction and wondering that she would raise this with him. "No. Best ask Mrs. Patmore to help you sort that, love."

She ignored his indulgent amusement. "Have you ever peeled a potato?"

A slightly puzzled look crossed his face. "A few," he said agreeably. "In my time."

"Was Prince Albert still alive then?"

He made a slightly impatient sound. "He died in 1861. I hadn't even been weaned then, as if you didn't know. Why are you asking that?"

She shrugged. "I was just wondering. That's all." Mrs. Hughes the Housekeeper, she told herself, was a shrewd character who was an able strategist. And now it was time to adjust her approach.

"I've been thinking about my job at the Abbey. Do you think I'm a good housekeeper?" She spoke seriously, but he stared at her for a moment as if suspecting a joke.

"That's a curious question."

"And?"

It was clear that he could not discern her motive and so could do nothing but answer the question. "You are an exemplary housekeeper. The Crawleys are lucky to have you, as they know. Are you looking for a letter of reference?"

She went on. "A housekeeper's virtues are innate, I suppose. You're either a good one or you aren't."

Whatever direction she was going in, he couldn't let a misapprehension pass, and he snorted in derision. "Hardly. It's possible that disposition contributes to one's effectiveness, but training has a lot more to do with it. You and I were both trained by people who knew what they were about and we have, in our turn, trained others to like standards. That's something to be proud of, I think."

"So you don't think that my background, growing up on a farm in Argyll, is much of a factor in my success?"

This might not have been how he had anticipated spending the evening, but he was not adverse to a conversation about the work they did. His work was a large part of his life. It interested him to examine the elements of which it consisted. He straightened up a little and gave himself over to a more serious response.

"Not directly. You absorbed useful values there, yes. But training in a good house accounts for your practical abilities. I was born on this estate. But I learned the skills of my position under Mr. Finch's careful management." As he warmed to the topic, he leaned forward a little in eagerness. "Once he had me take up and re-set a formal dinner table for twenty-four because I'd transposed the fish fork and the salad fork at _one_ place. It took me an hour to re-do it."

"That seems rather excessive." It really was, Elsie thought. The tyranny of the old days.

"I thought it was at the time," he said easily, "but he demanded perfection and I learned from it."

"Hmm." Well, that explained a lot about his exacting standards. "I suppose you grew up knowing a lot about the horses, with your father being a groom."

"I thought we were talking about house service," he said, a little disgruntled at this shift.

"We're talking about how we got to where we are," she said smoothly. "And you started in the stables."

"I didn't _start_ in the stables," he corrected her, a little curtly. "My father - and grandfather - worked there. I just hung about there, as a boy. To answer your question, yes, I knew a few things about horses. More than many, I dare say."

She smiled a little. He didn't want to associate himself with the stables, but he still couldn't help boasting about his knowledge. Oh, her Charlie was a proud man.

"We only had the plough and the old trap at home," she went on, "but you had fancy carriages here. Was it complicated to harness the horses?" She had thought about this on occasion, in those old days when she'd seen a coach and four on the road.

"It depended on the carriage. Some of them were very complicated. Granddad used to show me. My father had less patience. He just wanted to get it done."

"Do you remember how to do it?"

He laughed. "No! Well, I don't have to, do I? The fancy old carriages are gone and with it all the rigamarole. And I'm not sorry about that, though my father would box my ears to hear me say it. Why on earth does it matter? And why are you sitting over there? Come and keep me warm here, Elsie."

It was an invitation she would never turn down. He drew her into the circle of his arm and she tucked her legs up under her as she nestled beside him. He was a dear man in so many ways. But when he leaned over to nuzzle her neck, she did not reciprocate as she might have on another night. There was still a way to go in this conversation.

"We work hard," she said, tilting her head a little that he might trace the line of her neck with his soft kisses, not adverse to his attentions so long as they might still talk. "And long days."

"Mmm," he agreed, slightly preoccupied. "That's why it's a particular pleasure to spend evenings like this together here."

"In our home," she added. "Where you can relax."

"Yes," he murmured.

"And enjoy some quiet time."

"Yes."

"While I make dinner."

He paused and lifted his eyes to hers, now a little uncertain and possibly wary. "Yes."

"And you see nothing odd about that." Despite herself, her tone had changed a little and he, so attuned to her in this moment, noticed.

"Should I?"

She drew herself up a little bit and turned around so that she could look at him directly. This put him at a little distance from the enticing curve of her neck where it met her shoulder and he looked aggrieved.

"Well, it's only an observation," she began, in a somewhat crisper voice, "but has it not occurred to you that, having put in a long day at the house that begins at daybreak, I might be tired in the evening, too? And yet when we have dinner here, you relax in your chair while I put it together."

He understood that the mood of the last few minutes had been broken, but had not yet discerned the potential friction that lay behind this. "Well, someone has to make dinner. And, I'll say this," he added earnestly, "you're getting better at it." *****

"Am I. I'm so glad you think so. Why, exactly, is it my job?" That it _was_ her job was not something she really questioned, but his patronizing comment had got her back up

Now he could no longer ignore the change in the climate and he sat up a little straighter, too. "It just is," he said cautiously.

"Because I'm _the wife_."

"Not _the_ wife," he said, as if trying to make something clear to her. " _My_ wife. Am I wrong to think so? It's what my mother did."

Elsie had never known his mother. But it was to his mother's cooking that he had compared hers and that had given her reason for a grudge against the woman, however unreasonable. "That's _all_ your mother did." In normal circumstances she would not have spoken so disparagingly of a housewife's labours. She knew well enough from her own mother's life how taxing that life was. But in the moment she had a point to make. "And that consisted only of cooking and cleaning and mending for you and your father."

"I'm not understanding you," he said, although the look of dismay on his face suggested he understood that the evening was deteriorating.

"I work," she said abruptly. "All day. At a job that is as demanding as yours. And yet, when we come home, your day is done, but I've got to make dinner, or breakfast. And keep the house tidy. And make the bed which, by the way, we both sleep in." She was hitting her stride now, done with her submissive reception to his criticisms. And it occurred to her that Mrs. Patmore's remarks about Mrs. Hughes the Housekeeper had some validity.

"And," she went on, "you're not very appreciative. Or at all, for that matter. You criticize the way I cook. Well, perhaps you hadn't noticed, but housekeepers don't cook. They're too busy balancing accounts, placing orders, managing a large staff, doing inventory of linens, and the other three dozen tasks that are part of running a great house. I haven't cooked, Charles Carson,..." there was something about using his full name that added emphasis to her words, "...since I left my mother's kitchen almost thirty-five years ago. You said yourself that you couldn't be expected to harness horses properly any more. Why on earth should I be proficient at cooking?"

She wasn't angry, but she was giving vent to an exasperation she hadn't realized ran so deeply. In truth, she was almost more annoyed with herself for not, as Mrs. Patmore had pointed out, being herself. Had she not fleetingly worried, before they were married, that the transformation of Elsie Hughes into Mrs. Charles Carson would lead to her being subsumed by him? When it came to it, she hadn't surrendered her name, but it had happened all the same, and by her own hand. Well! She was having no more of that!

"We don't need to harness horses anymore," he said, as if she'd missed the point. "But we still need to eat."

She sighed impatiently. _He_ was missing the point. "Yes, we do. And it's not even that I mind, although you could lend a hand. It's your criticism I find hard to take. And your lack of understanding. I can't turn into Mrs. Patmore overnight."

"I'd rather you never did," he said. Then, seeing her irritation rising, he hastened to placate her. "You have a point. I ought not to have expected so much. At least at first."

This might have pacified her at an earlier stage of their domestic life, but it had been a mistake to suppress her unhappiness so long. Now his acknowledgment was wholly inadequate.

"And then there's your grumbling about how I make the bed."

Perhaps it was her tone of voice. Or possibly he really felt that he had more room to maneuvre on this issue. At any rate, his posture stiffened a little. "That's not the same thing." A more experienced husband would have sensed the lay of the land and opted for a strategic retreat.

"The problem," she continued acidly, "is that you've been indulged for so long that you're spoiled. And I admit that I've done my share to spoil you."

"And that means?" he demanded.

"It means that you haven't made your own bed in decades."

"Why should I have done?"

"Or dusted, or swept up. You've had servants to do those things for you for so long, you've lost your perspective on the work involved. You're like Lord Grantham in a minor key, except that he's much more gracious about it."

He was affronted, but not enough to be deterred from the specific point. "I don't see what that has to do with making the bed properly."

"It has _everything_ to do with it. Yours has long been the only bed in the house where the maids make such an effort on those sharp corners you like so much. I taught them how to do it and made sure they did so, because you're so fussy. But everyone else on the planet makes do with corners as I make them on our bed. Which, by the way, is quite sharp enough."

He was so taken aback by this conversation that he could only focus on the most familiar feature of it - a reference to the standards at the Abbey. "Do you mean to tell me that you have not maintained the highest standard in making His Lordship's bed?"

For just the briefest moment, Elsie wondered how they had gotten into such a ridiculous argument. ****** Then she remembered how much it did annoy her and that she had brought it up in the first place.

"As it happens," she said coolly, "His Lordship likes to pull the sheets up around his feet at night, so he doesn't like them to be tucked in firmly. Too sharp a corner frustrates him."

He stared at her, his mouth agape, possibly shocked that she knew something about His Lordship that he didn't.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" she snapped. "Can't you stop being the butler of Downton Abbey for five minutes?"

His mouth closed abruptly. This was a charge he could answer. "And who would you have me be?" he asked sarcastically. "A hallboy? The scullery maid?"

This caught her up short for a moment."I meant yourself. The butler of Downton Abbey isn't who you are," she said, puzzled by the way he defined himself. "It's what you do."

But he shook his head. "That is a meaningless distinction." He seemed so sure.

"No, it isn't. You're not Mr. Carson all the time."

The look on his face dared her to prove otherwise. She didn't have to think twice.

"You weren't Mr. Carson, the butler, in Scarborough. And," her voice softened, "it's not _Mr. Carson_ who gets into bed with me every night either."

"Of course it isn't." He seemed oddly disconcerted by her remark. "There's no... _function_...for a butler in a bedroom..." _Praise be_! she thought. "...I've had to make it up as I go along, haven't I?" The almost belligerent tone of these words faded into a softness of his own. "If it weren't for you, I'd be lost there." He reached for her hand and his great dark eyes, focused on hers, swirled with a passion that might have embarrassed Mr. Carson the butler.

 _Ah!_ she thought. _Here's my Charlie_. "We're both making it up as we go along, remember?" She thought she saw things more clearly now. "Charlie Carson is a sweet man," she went on. "But _Mr. Carson_ has a critical eye that never stops. You wouldn't be the best butler in England if this weren't so. All I'm saying is that I'd rather you left the butler at the Abbey. I think Charlie might be easier to live with."

"I don't know how to be with you any other way." He clung to the identity wrapped up in his livery like it was a roadmap to life.

"But you do," she said encouragingly. "Do you think the man you were in Scarborough would be complaining about the way the chops were cooked or how the bed is made?" As she remembered it, the man in Scarborough didn't even know what he was eating half the time. Other things distracted him.

He hardly moved for a long minute, his expression neutral, thoughtful. And then his face creased in a pained look and he hung his head. His grip on her hand tightened. "I don't know why you put up with me, Elsie."

"It's because I'm stuck with you," she said promptly.

His head snapped up and their eyes met and he saw the glint of mischief there. And they both laughed. He pulled her into his arms for a long sweet moment. And when they relaxed again and withdrew a little so that they could look upon one another again, he shook his head in wonder.

"I was...before we were married...so worried about how to be a husband. I had no training for it." It was a pathetic admission, but true for all that. "I hadn't done anything so new in so long... It was too easy to fall in with old habits. I am sorry."

"I believe you."

"But you," there was admiration in his eyes, "you've been so much better at it."

That made her laugh. "Not really. You didn't want to let go of what you knew. I've only just realized that I was trying to be someone I'm not. We both need to be true to ourselves. Everywhere. It may take some effort," she added a little tartly, thinking of him more than herself. She would be alert to any relapses.

He lifted her hand to his mouth and traced a line of soft kisses over her fingers. And then his eyes slanted up toward hers. "I suggest we start where we have the most confidence," he suggested. And she saw on his face the playful look she had first seen there in a hotel in Scarborough.

"If you make the bed in the morning," she responded, not trying very hard to suppress her own impish grin.

"Done."

 *** AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Even _I_ want to smack him when he says this.

 **** AUTHOR'S NOTE:** But then Elsie remembered that Julian Fellowes had given them this ridiculous storyline so, being the professional she was, she carried on with it.


	7. Chapter 7 But SHe Did Exist: Becky, I

**DISAGREEMENTS**

 **DISCLAIMER:** I do not own, nor do I profit in any way from, my use of the characters, setting, or plot inspiration drawn from _Downton Abbey_ , which are by right the intellectual property of Julian Fellowes.

 **Chapter 7 But She Did Exist: Becky (Part I) ***

 **But She Did Exist**

It wasn't as though he thought everything would be perfect between them once they were married. Everyone argued. He knew that. _They_ had often argued, before. It would have been unrealistic to expect anything else. He was unprepared, however, for what they argued about.

Money was an obvious source of conflict. He remembered his own parents wrangling over that. And it wasn't only homes where it was hard to come by that money posed a problem. No, he'd overheard enough conversations in the elegant rooms upstairs at Downton Abbey to know that. And there were, he thought, particular aspects of his and Elsie's relationship that might have made this more sensitive. He knew it aggravated her that he made significantly more money than she did. But that was how things were - men, as the breadwinners, had to have a superior income. She was full of socialist and women's rights notions on that which he could hardly bear to hear. When she took that up, he forebore from countering her and tried to change the subject.

Rather more difficult to navigate was the actual accounting of their combined incomes. He was accustomed to a degree of flexibility. He'd always been careful with his money, always with an eye to securing his retirement. Of all the members of staff, he could be most confident that the family would care for him in his old age, but as someone long responsible for his own welfare, he did not rely solely on that prospect. Still, he'd made a good wage for decades and could always indulge himself when the notion took him to do so. Things were different for Elsie. Necessity had made her very frugal. For several years now, she had been financially responsible for her sister's welfare and that fact had made her count her pennies carefully and weigh every personal expenditure. He also thought, with an Englishman's prejudice, that being a Scot might have something to do with her parsimony, though he never mentioned this when they discussed finances. It was a reversal of their usual roles that she should prove reluctant to do something and he the one arguing that they might "live a little."

An even more delicate issue had emerged before they were married concerning the nature of their relationship. Until he became aware of her apprehensions, he hadn't even considered the possibility that intimate relations might be a source of conflict, at least not between _them_. Though they'd resolved it - or had, at least, _talked_ it through - before the wedding, he'd worried about how it would be when they actually married. He recalled, then, that sexual incompatibility c _ould_ also be a source of marital conflict. Again, he'd heard too much over the years, often veiled in euphemisms to be sure, but enough to know that the success or failure of a marriage could turn on this.

Happily their premarital understanding was borne out in practice. He had approached her gently, almost cautiously, while she had been bolder than she - and certainly he - had thought likely, and they'd met in the middle, which is where they both wanted to be. There was passion enough, and pleasure, too, as well as a shared preference for the traditional and the moderate. They were comfortable with each other and their communion all the more exhilarating to them for that. He counted their easy intimacy as one of the greatest blessings of his life.

Could there be any topics more fraught with tension than money or marital relations? If they could negotiate those, then surely they could manage almost anything. He had not even considered the always-volatile matter of in-laws. And even if it had occurred to him, he would not have grasped the potential for it in their home. He had no close family members living and her only remaining relative had no concrete presence in their lives, beyond the cheque that was made out for her care every quarter. He could not imagine how Becky could become a source of conflict and so was surprised when she emerged as the focal point of their most serious argument since a confrontation over Lord Gillingham's predator valet. And yet it wasn't as if there weren't a few incidents that presaged this.

How was it that he had worked with her for thirty years and not known that she had a sister? She'd only admitted Becky's existence when he'd all but forced her to, prompted by the pressure he'd applied in his campaign to persuade her to buy a house with him. Knowing about Becky, after that, he'd brought her up a few times before they were married, just courteous inquiries. She had answered politely, succinctly - too succinctly perhaps - and deftly changed the subject. He hadn't take much notice. It was different on Boxing Day night when, in a preliminary discussion of their finances, he had set before her the precautionary arrangements he wanted to make for Becky's long-term security, and she'd responded with - well - really quite gratifying warmth. ****** It took him some time to realize that this reaction was the exception, rather than the rule, and that Becky was a matter of much deeper waters.

Far more typical was Elsie's response to his query about whether or not Becky would attend their wedding. It was, to his mind, a simple question: would she or wouldn't she? He knew too little about his sister-in-law-to-be to know. But he saw Elsie's face shut down immediately.

"No," she said firmly, in a voice so uncharacteristically cold he was chilled. And then she turned away.

He decided, as a matter of discretion, not to ask why. But he tried to puzzle it out for himself. Perhaps a crowd would be too much for Becky. He wouldn't know. He knew nothing of her condition other than how Elsie had described her - "not right in the head," whatever that meant. But as the main attraction of their own wedding, neither of them would be able to attend to a fragile guest. He let it pass.

He'd tried again when they discussed where they would spend their honeymoon. They both wanted somewhere low key and on the coast. It might have been that each fondly cherished their walk on the beach at Brighton two years earlier where they had held hands in the surf, the first tangible evidence that their relationship was changing. Or perhaps it was just the magnetic appeal of saltwater to people who rarely saw it.

"Scarborough," Elsie had suggested.

It didn't really matter to him, one way or another, so long as he was with her. But then he had an idea. "Why not the west coast?" he asked. ******* "Then we could visit your sister." He knew she'd not been away in many months, knew it because he had to approve the absence of any member of staff.

"No!" she'd said sharply and a curtain had come down between them again.

Her reaction startled him. He was trying to be thoughtful. "I didn't say we should spend our honeymoon with her," he said, a little reproachfully, still not really grasping the emotional vein he had tapped. "Or even that we should spend it in Lytham-St.-Anne's. But if we were somewhere close by, we could go over for a day, or..."

"No!"

"What is it?" he'd asked, not understanding. "I'd thought you'd like the chance to see your sister. You've not been for a good long time, and..."

"And what? Are you telling me I've been neglectful?"

"Of course not," he'd said, in a mollifying tone, alarmed at the direction this conversation was going.

Perhaps she saw the confusion in his face and her own expression softened. "We've little enough time together as it is, Mr. Carson. I think we should take advantage of it."

He wasn't convinced that that was all there was to it, but he'd not raised it again. They'd gone to Scarborough and neither of them had mentioned Becky that week. Once they were back at Downton, they had new arrangements to get used to and old habits to assume, and in neither was there a convenient place for Elsie's invisible sister. It was as if she did not exist.

But she did exist.

Elsie wrote regular cheques to St. John's House in Lytham-St.-Anne's. He saw them noted in the chequebook of their now-joint account and passed over them without a word, but it preyed on his mind nonetheless. He had no family in practical terms, but he knew how it worked. If they lived nearby, you saw them and talked to them, no matter how you felt about them. If they lived away, you wrote to them. Whether near or far, you talked about them, complained about them, hoped and prayed for them, celebrated and agonized with and for them. They were always there, even if they were not physically _there_. But not Becky. Apart from the money that provided hard evidence of her, she was ephemeral. He had begun to realize that he might not ever have heard about her if he'd had the courage of his convictions and proposed marriage outright, rather than making that feint about buying the house. Surely this wasn't normal.

He couldn't let it alone. But it was she who inadvertently opened the door.

"You're looking awfully solemn," she said one evening, after they'd settled themselves in the sitting room. "Does Lady Mary have a problem of which I'm unaware?" She was teasing him.

"I want to talk about something," he said circumspectly, made cautious by previous experience.

"It sounds serious."

"It is." He'd had to write a cheque earlier in the day and his eye had fallen on the most recent dispatch, in her hand, to the residence in Lytham-St.-Anne's. "I was wondering why you never talk about your sister."

She'd had a mischievous look on her face and it immediately disappeared behind an impassive expression. "It's none of your business," she said curtly.

"Isn't it?"

"I suppose this is because of the cheque," she said.

"I said nothing about that," he protested. "You know I'm more than willing to share the responsibility with you. I adjusted my will to include Becky." He hoped this reminder might win her over.

"That was your idea. Change it, if you like."

"You're twisting my words."

" _You're_ interfering." She stood up and left the room.

They'd never gone to bed angry with each other and the prospect of this weighed on him. And yet when he climbed in beside her, though she did not turn to him she did snuggle against him. She'd forgiven him, for the moment. This did not wholly assuage his concerns. He did not want to fight with her about Becky. But neither did he think they could realistically leave things as they were.

 **Falling Out**

He returned to the subject a few days later, on their half day which they now took together, when they sat down to tea in their own sitting room. He didn't like the idea of souring this precious time with the discussion of a contentious issue, but they had few other opportunities.

"Elsie, I want to talk about Becky."

Predictably the warmth vanished from the room and her sparkling eyes turned to ice. "How many times do I have to tell you that that's not on," she said coolly.

"She's part of your life," he said. "A big part. How can we be everything to each other when you bar me from an aspect as significant as this?"

"I _don't_ want to have this conversation!" She began to chew on her lip, an involuntary sign of agitation.

"Please," he said. " _Once_. Explain everything to me. If I can understand, then perhaps I'll be able to..."

"To what?" she snapped. "Let it go? Never mention her again? I doubt that very much. It'll only open a door to more questions."

"Perhaps as it bothers you so much, you _should_ talk about it," he suggested.

"See? You think talking about things makes them better. Well, there are some things that simply _are_ , Charlie, and talking about them doesn't change a blessed thing."

He did think that way. But so did she, usually. He could see that she was angry, thoroughly irritated, but at least she hadn't stormed out. It looked as though she was going to stand and fight this time. And while he didn't relish the conflict, he thought they ought to have it out.

"Shouldn't we share out secrets? I've told you all mine."

This elicited a sceptical look from her. "Your biggest secret is your dance hall past," she said scornfully. "A trifling embarrassment from your youth!"

He ignored the provocation, although it hurt a little. He was still sensitive about that juvenile episode in his life. "Elsie,..."

"You should let sleeping dogs lie, Charlie."

That was usually wise advice, but he chose not to take it. "I've tried. But it gnaws at me because I can see that it gnaws at you." He idly stirred his tea, though the few grains of sugar he had added were certainly dissolved by now. "Is it because of me?" he asked, looking for some rationalization. "Is it because of her?"

Her eyes went wide with exasperation. "Of _course_ , it's you!" she said sharply. " _And_ her!"

His whole frame tensed in anticipation. This didn't sound positive, but it was the first time she had given him anything at all. "Tell me," he urged.

But she looked away, already regretful of that small concession.

"Elsie?"

She turned back to him then and the formidable set of her countenance almost deterred him. She was a very strong woman. The iron core of her character had always attracted him, even when it impeded a smooth relationship. He admired her self-assurance, but there was an element of danger there, too.

"You're the last person in the world I want to talk to about Becky," she said. The antagonism had gone out of her voice, but the words themselves were unsettling.

"What? Why?"

"You know what you're like."

He didn't. Not as she meant it anyway. "I'm afraid you'll have to help me with that," he said cautiously.

She stared at him now. "Perfect. You're so perfect."

This left him speechless. Perfect was not a word she, or anyone else, had ever used to describe _him_. And the way she said it now, it was hardly a compliment.

She continued to stare at him, the expression on her face now a mixture of defensiveness and defiance. "Everything has to be just so for you. Never a hair out of place, never a wrinkle in your starched shirt. You put the _king_ into the phrase the 'King's English,' your speech always so correct and clearly articulated. You never end a sentence in a preposition. Did you know that?* ***** ** You expect perfection from yourself and everyone else about you, as well. And if they don't meet your standard, you make clear to them that they've failed to meet the mark. You don't tolerate sub-standard anything."

He was stunned by this assault and almost rose to it, but managed not to do so. With difficulty he focused on the substance and quickly discerned the point.

"It _is_ me you're worried about, then. My reaction to your sister. You think I'd be...what? Unkind? Condescending?" He paused. "Repulsed?"

"Yes." The word issued from her in a strangled gasp, as if the emotional weight she carried in her heart had finally burst forth. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "You like things to be done properly. You don't want people to embarrass you with their difference, their strangeness. Becky would make you uncomfortable. And I couldn't bear to see you shrink from her." Her eyes opened into his again and he saw there... He couldn't see anything there, for he was blinded with shock. Well. He _had_ asked.

It should have been his first impulse to take her in his arms and reassure her, but her words wounded him. He stood up and walked the length of the room and back, stopping before her. "Well," he said calmly. "I appreciate your frankness." The hollowness of his voice reflected the hurt he felt. "You have a shallow opinion of me," he said, not looking at her.

"I've never asked you to be anyone other than who you are," she responded, trying to recapture her equilibrium.

"Right," he said flatly. "So I'm a perfectionist, which is apparently a bad thing, _and_ you don't trust me."

"This isn't about you," she said irritably, frowning at him.

A humourless smile formed on his lips. "You've just said it was." And he didn't really want to live with that for the moment. He cleared his throat. "I'm going off to the Grantham Arms for a little while. I'll be back later."

She sighed, a painful sigh that touched his heart but not enough to deter him. "Do that and it'll be the village gossip that we've fallen out."

He paused in the doorway without looking back at her. "We _have_ fallen out." Then he left.

 *** AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This story (in two parts) favours Carson's perspective on the presence of Becky in their lives. I will address Mrs. Hughes's (Mrs. Carson's - perhaps we _should_ start calling her that) views on Becky in the story _Sisters_. I am staying away from that here so as to keep the other story fresh.

 **** AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This is an allusion to an incident I created in Chapter 11 "Mrs. Charlie Carson," in the story _Breaking with Tradition._

 ***** AUTHOR'S NOTE:** What _is_ the "west coast" called in England? I wasn't certain. Please advise and I'll correct it.

 ******AUTHOR'S NOTE:** It is not technically true that Mr. Carson never ends a sentence with a preposition, but I suspect this is the result of the way authors - his originator Julian Fellowes, or me, or anyone else who writes about him - have chosen to write, rather than an accurate reflection on Mr. Carson. He has had a good education. And grammar, like just about everything else in the rigidly hierarchical world of the British class system, is a prime indicator of class. Carson would probably take great pride in this affectation. In this he would clash with Winston Churchill, who railed about this grammatical rule, once declaring, when someone corrected him, that it was "an imposition _up_ with which I will not put!"


	8. Chapter 8: But She Did Exist: Becky, II

**DISAGREEMENTS**

 **Chapter 8 But She Did Exist: Becky, Part II**

He hadn't even gotten to the end of the lane before he realized that he wasn't going to go to the Grantham Arms and he was irritated with himself for having said he would. Where had he dredged _that_ up from? Only, he knew the answer to that. It was what his dad used to say after arguments with his mum and then away he'd go. This was part of the world in which he'd grown up, a world in which disgruntled men marched themselves off to the pub of an evening, to distance themselves from the aggravations of work and home and their wives, and to share their grievances with other men in like circumstances. And all of this over a pint of ale.

He didn't even like ale.

And he wouldn't have wanted to commune with the village men in their woes at any time. Or share his own.

And, for that matter, he didn't _really_ want to get away from his wife. They had little enough time together as it was. But his battered ego wouldn't let him make an abrupt about-face. No, he needed a little time to soothe his wounds in the cool evening air and then to consider what it was that made Elsie become someone else whenever her sister was mentioned.

Rejecting the pub atmosphere and the camaraderie of other men, which was the only pattern with which he was familiar for men to work out their domestic problems, he was thrown back on his own devices. Like so much else in this late-in-life marriage, he was obliged to make it up as he went along and hope for the best.

He turned away from the village, as mindful as Elsie was of local gossip. He had lived here all his life, after all. Instead he took to the gravel paths on the grounds of the Abbey and found himself, after some deliberately roundabout circuits, at the folly, where he kicked around a bit as the sun sank lower in the western sky. Resting his gaze on the house where he had spent so much of his life and whose management was his life's work helped to settle him and clear his mind. After a while, two pertinent points emerged from the emotional fog. The first revelation was that this turmoil was not, in fact, about him. Although Elsie had poured scorn on his character when he had asked for an explanation, she _was_ right when she had accused him of making this about himself. Realizing this made it possible for him to put aside his own hurt and to give himself over to musing over the real source of conflict. His second conclusion was not so much a revelation as an affirmation: he loved her. And more, he ought to be showing her that love in the midst of aggravation and at every other opportunity. He had failed to do so this evening, but there was still time to make amends. He did not reach these conclusions rapidly, but having done so he hurried home.

Elsie was still in the sitting room and had, he noticed - prompted by his growling stomach - finished off all the biscuits she'd set out for tea. If he _had_ gone to the pub, he could have had a meal. He put that out of his mind. She was reading one of the papers when he came in, something he seldom saw her do, largely because she had so little free time. He felt a twinge of guilt. This was their half-day off. They ought to have spent it together enjoying each other's company, not wrangling like this.

He came in quietly, but not meekly. He'd done nothing wrong. Neither of them had. It was only that they'd had a disagreement and needed time to cool down.

She glanced up at him. "Did they throw you out?" Neither her face nor her tone gave away her feelings and yet he sensed a latent animosity. Fair enough. Her emotional investment in this argument was far greater than his and he had chosen the moment for their second round over it. This time, though, he would not let his self-absorption get in the way.

"I didn't go to the pub," he said quietly, sitting down on the stool in front of her chair.

His reply drew her attention, perhaps despite herself. He reached out to take one of her hands - she had to let go of the paper to let him do it, and it crumpled into her lap. Her hand was stiff, conveying her displeasure, but he felt it important to be touching, a reassurance of affection that words could not always communicate.

"That was my father talking," he admitted. "He had a lifetime to sort things with my mother. He thought they could afford to quarrel. We don't have that luxury."

She was still guarded. "Are we quarrelling?"

"No," he said, squeezing her hand. "Not anymore, anyway. I'm sorry, Elsie. I obliged you to talk about a something that means a lot to you, and I ought to have been a bit more thick-skinned about it and not gone storming out." He was exaggerating. It hadn't been quite like that. But he was trying to get on her side. He felt the tension in her hand ease a little and he was encouraged by it.

"You were right about me, at least in part," he went on. "I _am_ a perfectionist. I _do_ criticize everything." Their _contretemps_ over domestic arrangements was not that far behind them. "And I _am_ uncomfortable with difference and I don't hide it well. I'm not alone," he added, "but perhaps I am worse than some. Only..." He paused and stared forcefully into her eyes, trying to reveal to her through his soulful gaze the sincerity of what he was saying. "...I don't believe I'm hopeless. I'm a kind man." She knew this about him. At least, he hoped she did. "I've always been good with children," he said, a little lamely He didn't know Becky, could not imagine an equivalent to her, and so had to fall back on the only frame of reference he had for a different kind of person.

"Becky isn't a child," she said quickly, her eyes flashing.

She had spoken sharply, but he was not deterred. So long as they were talking, they were making progress. He proceeded cautiously.

"Tell me," he coaxed her.

"You wouldn't understand."

That might be so. But he heard the weight of the world on her shoulders in the way she spoke those few words.

"But..." It suddenly occurred to him that this conversation was not only not about him, but also not about Becky. This conflict between them was, in the first instance, about _them_. "But...we love each other, don't we, Elsie? And it's the real thing. And...I trust you. I've trusted you with _my_ hurts." He was thinking now not of the dance hall business, which was rather small beer in comparison, but of Alice, and of Charlie Grigg. "They may not be grand confidences, but I trusted you with them. If I had bigger secrets, I'd tell you of them."

And saying this, he drew her into his arms. They were awkwardly situated - both of them on the edge of their seats - but words could only take them so far. A comforting hug was always more eloquent a statement of uncompromising love than any spoken sentiment. It was also more convincing. As honeyed as his words might be, their emotional understanding owed as much to physical intimacy as to any confidences they had exchanged. He felt her melting into him, relief of different kinds sweeping both of them.

"She's like no one you've ever met," she said thickly, her voice almost a whisper.

"Tell me about her," he said softly.

Neither of them moved from their awkward perch. She needed his strength and reassurance, and he was happy to extend them to her. Then she sighed and they both pulled back a little. He took both her hands in his now and waited silently while she ordered her thoughts.

"Becky isn't a child," she said again, only this time without the rebuke in her voice. She was looking directly into his eyes as she spoke. He met her gaze, determined to be supportive and not to shrink from any uncomfortable truths she might impart.

"But she isn't an adult either," Elsie went on. "She...lives in her own world. Of course, it intersects with ours, but never where you think it will or how you expect it to. There's a logic in it, but she's the only one who knows it. They're..." She hesitated a little and he tightened his grip on her hands, letting her know he was still with her. "...they're all different, people...like Becky. From each other, I mean. Becky's world makes sense only to her."

She was right. He didn't understand. This was all new to him. But knowledge was the foundation for understanding. He waited.

Elsie took a deep breath. She seemed resigned, as if not convinced this was the right thing to do but having decided to do it anyway. "What's she like?" For a moment, Elsie had to think about it. "She can be...gentle, temperamental, oblivious, rude, silly, weeping, angry - up and down, unpredictable, and all in a matter of minutes. And for no reason that either you or I or anyone else could explain."

She was watching him, searching for any signs of an adverse reaction. But he was less concerned with these insights into Becky, and rather more aware of what he was learning about her. All he could think about was how much this must hurt her to make her so guarded with her feelings. Elsie had always been circumspect, holding her cards so close to her chest in all things. They were so different in that way. It was why everyone downstairs had known for so long that he was deeply in love with her and why they had, most of them - including him - been surprised to discover that she loved him in the same way. He'd thought that was just the way she was, taciturn by disposition. But perhaps she had learned such discretion in the school of family life that encompassed an erratic member like Becky. He knew in this moment how much he loved her because he could feel her pain, however mutely communicated. Even though he could not yet appreciate its every dimension, he knew, too, that he wanted to comfort her.

She was staring at him, coolly, almost clinically, as if trying to make up her mind about further revelations.

"I love her," she said abruptly, a blunt statement tinged with defiance, as if daring him to challenge her on it. When he only waited, she continued. "She makes me laugh sometimes," and she relented enough to laugh a little at the thought of this. "And she has Da's eyes." Here the affection for sister and father overlapped. "And she is conscientious, once you can get her to do something. And persistent, in a way I never can be."

"But those things don't count." Her voice was suddenly hard again. "People see her as a...misfit. A...broken or...lesser...being. The _official_ term, in the laws regarding such people is...is... _idiot_. The _idiot_ law. The _idiot_ asylum. The..." Her voice broke suddenly on this and he, without conscious thought, pulled her into his arms once more. He felt her resistance, perhaps because she could feel the tension in him and mistook it for revulsion. But he wasn't reacting against Becky now, but against the system of which she spoke. *****

Her struggle to regain her equilibrium absorbed him. When, he wondered, had she last confided in anyone in such terms? He could well believe that he was the first person outside of her family to hear this. His shoulders squared with the responsibility of this. He could not let her down.

"Still," she said, trying to bluster her way through the unwanted outburst by resorting to the defensive mechanism of sarcasm, "that's a step _up_ from _lunatic_." ******

He knew nothing of this, of official regulation of the...well, what _did_ one call them? the unfortunate? the mentally deficient? the feeble-minded? - yes, that was one he had heard. Idiots? Lunatics? How easily these words were tossed about in commonplace discourse. How brutally insensitive they must sound to someone like Elsie, to whom they had very specific connotations.

She had drawn back from him again, just a little, so that she might continue to talk. "You can't...live a normal life, or even a quiet life, with someone like that in your family. They're always attracting attention, always the wrong kind. People stare, take offense, ridicule, act cruelly."

Her words tore at his heartstrings. He felt a self-righteous anger toward the swine who had ever hurt her in this way. And then was engulfed in a wave of self-recrimination at the more subtle indications of intolerance such as indifference. He believed he would never have stooped to cruelty in the event that he had ever met an "idiot" - what a foul term - but was only too conscious of his own character to know that had he done so he would have turned away, rendering invisible the offensive sight. This, he realized, was why Elsie had shrunk from speaking with him about Becky. She knew him well.

"It's a burden everywhere you go," Elsie said, her tone reflecting a factual not emotional reality. "Church, school, shopping in the village. It's why such people are put away. They make other people uncomfortable. Their families keep them at home, when they can. Or put them away, in asylums or hospitals. Or workhouses." *******

 _The workhouse_.

For almost a century, this had been the most dreaded word in the English language. Disease and death were less ominous, for the workhouse encompassed these and every other ordeal of the poor and indigent - abuse of every kind, poverty, tyranny, next-to-starvation, deprivation both physical and emotional, separation of families, humiliation. Humiliation almost above all, and inescapable once you had sunk so low.

He felt a sudden jolt of guilt and a broader wave of understanding in a matter that had long eluded him. Charlie Grigg. Elsie had been so concerned about Charlie Grigg and he couldn't understand why when she'd never met the man and he hadn't given a damn. But the reality of the workhouse was too close to her. For him, the workhouse had no more reality than the Dickens' novels in which he had read about them.

Oh, God, but there was so much more to Elsie than he had ever known, ever imagined.

"We kept Becky at home," Elsie said, passing over her reference to the workhouse more easily than he did. "My mother took care of her. She schooled her as best she could, teaching her how to take care of herself and some simple tasks. Becky could do such things and do them well, but the energy it took to train her was immense. My mother carried that. I left to make my own life, with my mother's blessing, but not without guilt."

Well, they all carried those kinds of burdens, didn't they? But Elsie's was perhaps heavier than some.

"That's weighed on you," he said sympathetically.

She nodded. "And when my mother died, I had to make a decision."

This was familiar territory. She'd said this part last autumn when she'd first told him about Becky.

"I could have taken care of her myself. I might have done it," she said, her eyes boring into his, determined to face his reaction, accept his disapproval, straight on. "But I feared I would fail and it would be the workhouse for both of us."

The damned workhouse again!

"So," she said, her tone lightening a little, reflecting the fact that she was coming to the end of her story, rather than that the tale itself was brightening, "I chose to pursue my own life and career, and to sacrifice the material prosperity I gained from it for that freedom."

This, too, took a toll on her. He hastened to unburden her of this in the only way he could. "It was a fair bargain," he declared, rationalizing.

She shrugged. "Fair to whom?" she asked drily, unwilling to be relieved.

"Do you regret your decision?'

"No. I don't second guess myself. But just because I can live with it, doesn't mean it was the right decision, or the best one."

"It weighs on you."

"As all imperfect choices must." She took another deep breath and then let it out slowly. "There now. You know most of it, if not all."

She looked at him expectantly, waiting for his reaction much like a prisoner in the dock looked to the jury. His response was to take her in his arms once more.

"Thank you," she whispered in his ear.

They sat together in a moment of silence, both waiting for the emotional currents of this conversation to settle around them.

"You've lived with walls," he said at last. "It shows in your reserve." Her revelation had taught him something about his own character as well as hers. The emotional wounds he had suffered in his life had been slighter and susceptible to mending by the smile of a child. He understood more of his own journey now that he had heard her tale. Elsie's experience was more complex and not so easily remedied, if remedy there was to be had. He could perhaps only ever offer understanding and, that most soothing of balms, acceptance.

"It isn't necessary for you to tell me everything you think and feel, love. It is only necessary that you should be able to do so if you want to, without fear of judgment or rejection." He hoped she could see in his eyes how deeply his love for her ran. "Becky is nothing to be ashamed of," he said firmly.

"Isn't she?"

"No."

"That's hard to believe."

"Well, practice, then."

She almost smiled at him. "I can't change over night," she warned him.

" _I_ don't expect _anything_ to change at such a precipitous rate," he said loudly and largely to amuse her. Again a ghost of a smile wafted across her face. "I just hope," he added more earnestly, "that you believe you can trust me."

"It may be possible," she said, her voice noncommittal, but with a warmth in her sparkling eyes. She leaned forward and kissed him, a swift, casual kiss, but one that told him in a minute that things were all right between them again.

There didn't seem to be anything else to say for the moment. She went upstairs to prepare for bed. He lingered in the sitting room. He thought he might get some jam and bread and then make the rounds before going up. But he also just wanted to think for a bit.

In some corner of his mind he heard her moving around upstairs, but her soft tread on the stairs escaped his notice. Not until he saw the shadow at the door did he look up. Elsie had changed and was now enveloped in her old dressing gown. He thought she ought to have a new one, a pretty, bright-coloured one - perhaps cornflower blue to match her eyes, or red to make her feel warm, one that wasn't a dull burgundy and worn in places. But she resisted. Elsie never wanted a thing just for the sake of it. Old or used or "not quite right in the head" were not reasons for her to cast something away. He admired that about her.

He looked up at her with a question forming on his lips, but before he could speak she had crossed the floor and held something out to him.

It was a photograph of two young girls. It was quite an old relic, sepia-toned. They sat together on the three steps just outside a farmhouse door. They were perhaps eight and ten years old. Their skirts fell just below their knees and they both wore knitted sweaters with buttons up the front.

He stared at it for a long minute. He knew that they were two years apart, but it was hard to tell from the way they sat which was the bigger one. Still, he knew Elsie immediately.

"That's you," he said, pointing, and then glanced at her.

She nodded, curling up beside him, pressing closely against his side, with her eyes fixed on the photograph. "How do you know?"

He gave a little chuckle. It was easy. "You've the same smile then as now," he said. "And the set of your shoulders is the same. You never lose that, you know. And just the way you're sitting. I'd know you anywhere," he said confidently, turning his head that he might meet her gaze.

She rewarded him with a warm smile and his eyes fell back to the picture again, studying the other little girl now.

"Becky doesn't look different," he said cautiously, and then shot her an apprehensive look. "I mean...," he spluttered on awkwardly, "she looks just like any other little girl."

But she was in no mood to take offense, not any more, and only nodded at his words. "If you were in a room with her you'd know soon enough," she assured him. "But here," she took the photograph from him and stared at it for a long moment, "she does _look_ normal enough. Still, it took us several minutes to get her to sit down at all and then she kept looking away or refusing to smile. But Da never lost his patience," she added, in a softer voice.

They spoke of their parents only rarely. They seemed part of such a distance past.

"I can see the mischief in your eyes even then," he mused, with a sidelong glance at her. He wanted to make her smile and he succeeded. A thought occurred to him. "Wait a minute." And then he got up and left the room.

He wanted something, knew exactly where it was, and in another bit he was downstairs again and resuming his place beside her.

"What are you doing?" she asked, although she could clearly see for herself. He had brought down a framed photograph and set himself to the task of replacing the existing picture with the one of the two sisters.

"There," he said finally, holding out the now-framed photograph to admire his work. Then he handed it to her. Again the little girls who had been Elsie and Becky Hughes stared up at them, now from a familiar frame.

Elsie reached for the displaced photograph, a portrait of an elegant young woman for whom she had once felt a fleeting pang of jealousy before her good sense had again prevailed.

"I got you this frame for Alice," she protested, waving the picture at him.

He nodded solemnly. "And I appreciated it," he said. "And I even kept it on my desk for a few years, as you had suggested. But I took it down before Christmas."

"I had noticed."

He wasn't surprised. She noticed everything. "I...loved Alice," he admitted, his eyes falling to her portrait, "and it _was_ good to be reminded of that. But," he took a deep breath and turned his ever-expressive gaze on her, "Alice is my past. I have kept her picture, and my memories of her, but...you are so much more to me, Elsie. I only ever had a dream of Alice. I have a life with you. A whole life. And I don't want to waste a minute of it in unnecessary aggravation." He picked up her free hand and kissed it, pressing his lips to each finger and then turning it over to kiss her palm.

When he lifted his head again, she reached out to brush a straggling strand from his eyes and then ran her hand through his hair. It was a sign that things really _were_ right between them. He closed his eyes and revelled in the play of her fingers mussing his hair and then smoothing it over again. She pushed his head down a little and pressed her lips into his now unruly hair. And then she stood up. He sighed as she moved away.

Crossing the room she put the framed photograph on the mantle and then turned to look at him. She seemed, he thought, more at ease than she'd ever been before when Becky had been in the room with them. Then he got up, too, and they went quietly up to bed together. He put the photograph of Alice on top of the wardrobe. Tomorrow he would put it back in the small box of memories from which he had drawn it years earlier. He'd always keep it. It was part of who he had been. And it reminded him of how much he now had.

 ***AUTHOR'S NOTE:** The major pieces of British legislation dealing with people with various forms of mental deficiencies - the "developmentally delayed" in more current parlance - included _The Idiots' Act_ (1886) and _The Mental Deficiency Act_ (1913) which divided those embraced by their terms into categories of idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded, and moral defectives. Institutions established in the mid-nineteenth century and directed, at least initially, at those deemed trainable in some form included the Eastern Counties Idiot Asylum and the Western Counties Idiot Asylum.

 ****AUTHOR'S NOTE:** In the terminology of the day, an "idiot" was someone who was born with a mental deficiency. A "lunatic," on the other hand was afflicted with a mental _illness_. The former was deemed "deficient" but not "crazy." The Lunacy Laws regulated the care of the latter.

 *****AUTHOR'S NOTE:** The options for those with mental or physical handicaps were limited and ominous. They included, as Elsie says here, home care (which placed a considerable burden on families in the days before there was any level of social acceptance and any level of public support); public hospitals or asylums dedicated to such individuals; private hospitals, asylums, or homes, which were expensive; or the workhouse, that lowest form of public welfare and the nightmare of every person in Britain whose fortunes took a turn for the worse. Though they'd been around for a while, they became more formal and institutionalized under the 1834 _New Poor Law_ as a way to deal with the destitute poor. They soon became dumping grounds for all sorts of society's cast-offs. They were the stuff of nightmares, as Charles Dickens so poignantly illustrated.

I cannot claim any form of authority on this subject, but I have been reading about it so as to make my treatment of this subject as realistic as possible. I may or may not have hit the mark, but I have made an effort.

For this story and for "Sisters" I have consulted:

Anne Borsay. _Disability and Social Policy in Britain since 1750_ Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005.

David Wright and Anne Digby (eds.) _From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical Perspectives on People with Learning Disabilities_. Routledge, 1996.

Steve Humphries and Pamela Gordon. _Out of Sight: The Experience of Disability, 1900-1950_. Northcote House, 1992.

Pauline Morris. _Put Away: A Sociological Study of Institutions for the Mentally Retarded_. Routledge  & Kegan Paul, 1969.

 **Last Note:** Again, this chapter is told from Carson's perspective. I'll examine Elsie's views in the story "Sisters."


End file.
